National Cybersecurity Drill to focus on Dark Internet

To enhance the cybersecurity readiness of government entities in tackling cyber-attacks, the Information Technology Authority (ITA), represented by Oman National CERT, will hold the 5th National Cybersecurity Drill during September 9 to 11, 2019, under the title ‘Malware and the dark Internet: the constant threat’, with the participation of more than 70 government entities and the critical infrastructure sector units.

The event seeks to build human national capabilities of government entities and national critical infrastructure at the sultanate to handle all kinds of cybersecurity incidents and to enhance their readiness and preparedness to respond to these incidents.

Additionally, this drill aims at enhancing coordination and cooperation between ITA’s OCERT and different government and private entities in all sectors.

The 3-day-long national drill includes implementing a number of scenarios for simulating some cybersecurity threats and how they can be handled through Cybersecurity Readiness Teams “CERTS” as well as measuring the response rate between participating teams to insure continuation of joint efforts to address cyber threats.

The first day of the drill will include the presentation of papers by a number of experts and specialists in cybersecurity to highlight the role of CERTs in responding to cyber incidents and the importance of developing the skills of national human resources , especially with the technological advancements, which is accompanied by an improvement in the level of threats and hackers’ capabilities and ways.

The second and third day will be dedicated to the implementation of the drill for government entities and for government companies and the critical infrastructure units.