They are Smart Infraco Limited and global cybersecurity leader Trend Micro. 

The partnership aims to empower government organisations with robust cybersecurity solutions, and ensuring a secure and resilient digital ecosystem that can withstand potential cybersecurity threats. 

The three institutions have thus, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to consummate the partnership.

The Director-General of NITA, Dr Richard Okie-Fosu, signed on behalf of the agency, while the MMEA Volume Business Manager for Trend Micro, Mazen Al-Adhami, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Smart Infraco, Harkirit Singh, initialled for their respective companies.

Collaboration 

Mr Okyere-Fosu who expressed satisfaction with the partnership said Ghana’s digitalisation has now reached a stage where the whole economy was underpinned by digital infrastructure and applications.

The risk these systems and applications pose to our economy and daily lifestyle is ever growing and we as a nation needs to take deliberate steps to properly profile the risk element and have a comprehensive mitigation measure that is forward-looking as part of our national business continuity plan.

One such risk factor that is not only peculiar to Ghana, but a global menace is cyber threats. Cyber threats come in various forms, one of which is the spread of virus which mostly cripple government systems and services,” he said.

He explained that NITA’s assessment shows that just a little over 30 per cent of government systems and endnodes (computers) have the right antivirus setup.

This, he said poses a great deal of risk to government in its agenda to fully digitalise the economy.

“It is in the face of such risk that NITA, as part of our mandate, has over the past few years collaborated with partners within the public and private sector to role out a series of interventions to address information and cyber security in general across the public sector space,” he added.

The Director-General encouraged all government agencies to take advantage of the service and secure their environment and stay compliant with Government of Ghana Enterprise Architecture (GGEA) and Interoperability Framework (GIF).

Robust cybersecurity solutions 

Mr Singh said his outfit would support NITA with the provision of robust cybersecurity solutions, ensuring a secure and resilient digital ecosystem that could withstand potential cybersecurity threats in Ghana.

"Smart Infraco as a technical partner of NITA, will install Trend Antivirus Servers at the two national Data Centres to efficiently deliver antivirus services to government agencies nationwide," Mr Singh stated.

Mr Al-Adhami said leveraging on Trend Micro's innovative suite, Smart Infraco would offer government organisations worry-free cybersecurity.

This, he said would include endpoint security for defending against ransomware and advanced attacks, email security for real-time protection against targeted attacks, spam, phishing, and viruses.