The electronic security centre at the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has emphasised the importance of co-operation, co-ordination and exchange of expertise in countering threats of cyberattacks targeting the State's departments and institutions.
At a seminar entitled "Lessons Learned from the Latest Attacks and Electronic Crimes against the State's Departments and Institutions", participants were briefed about attacks on some of the State's institutions, how they were made, how to prevent and respond to such attacks, and to ensure that they do not occur in the future.
Officials also highlighted the role played by the e-security centre at the MoI in confronting attacks targeting institutions, enhancing co-ordination among different bodies and exchanging expertise with relevant regional and international bodies.
The speakers said the centre's operations room receives about 35,000 electronic events per second, equivalent to 8.6bn events per day, which takes up storage space of about 12 terabytes, noting that these capabilities were developed specifically for the electronic security shield.
Maj Gen Osman Salem al-Hamoud, Assistant Head of the Security Centre at the Ministry of Interior, said the seminar was organised within the framework of spreading awareness about cyberattacks and crimes targeting the country's departments and institutions, and identifying the nature of such attacks, crimes, their mechanisms and ways to address them.
He praised the level of the participants in the seminar, including managers of information technology departments, and electronic security officials at bodies within the State.
Lieutenant Eng Abdul Aziz Hamid al-Marwani, Head of the Central Operations Room at the Electronic Security Centre pointed out that one of the most important functions of the centre was to detect and analyse threats, attacks and cyber-crimes targeting the state departments and institutions and coordinate to take security measures and procedures to address them according to the law as well as preparing security reports on the electronic security situation.
He highlighted some of hacking operations and cyber-crimes that hit some official departments in recent years, and lessons learned from them. He stressed the need to increase cooperation between the authorities concerned in the State and exchange of experiences in electronic security.
Lieutenant Eng Adnan Mahmoud Fikri said the centre's operations room is responsible for collecting, transferring, storing and analysing electronic records and collecting evidence to detect electronic crimes against State institutions, noting that 18 governmental entities have been linked to the centre's operations room so far and it is expected to reach 100 within one year.
He said the room is working to collect information from various sources of intelligence and electronic security, whether security partners in other countries or the private sector and to analyse and detect the gaps that can be exploited by the attackers, and raise awareness.