When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled

ISG RHUL Alumni Conference, 7 July 2010

When elephants fight, the grass gets trampledby Aireni Omerri CISA CISSP MSc

Founder, ISfA


Thus far

• Royal Holloway 2001-2002, CISSP 2002

• Worked on 3 continents; Africa, America & Europe

•


Agenda

•The build up•The fight•The aftermath


The aid myth contd

•US $1 trillion in the last 50 years

•the key indicators say Africa is worse off


Why aid hasn’t worked

•aid donors don’t listen to aid recipients

•questionable delivery practises

•aid is a multi-billion dollar industry


RICTSP

•Funded by the 9th EDF•Beneficiaries; member countries of COMESA, EAC, IGAD and IOC

•Ran from 2006-2009


Remit

•develop a national security strategy for the government agency responsible for promoting the advancement and development of ICT


Protagonists

•Elephant 1 - govt. agency•Elephant 2 - IGAD•Elephant 3 - Danish organisation

•Grass - Short Term Expert (STE)


Sticking point

•the government agency submitted a formal request to IGAD to amend the original deliverables

• IGAD took 5 weeks to turn the request down


Amended deliverables

•the government agency had drawn up its own risk assessment guidelines

•the government agency opted to have a roundtable


Amended deliverables II

•discussion instead of a workshop


Realisation

•the requirements of the government agency, the aid recipient, were secondary to those of IGAD and the Danish organisation


Communication failure

•STE raised issues and concerns with the hierarchy of IGAD and the Danish organisation


Apathy

•STE raised the issues and concerns with IGAD’s implementation of the RICTSP with COMESA, DfID, the EU and TI (Denmark)


The EU’s perspective

•Documents obtained under the EU’s FOI equivalent indicated all was well with the RICTSP implementation


After the fight

•the trampled grass is revived by a tropical downpour and energised by the potency of the African sun


The aftermath

•


ISfA tagline

•Securing the continent

•Africa’s security assured


Behind the logo

•closed group on LinkedIn - 103 members; 35 in Africa

•Management team made up of 4 ISG Alumni; 2 in Nigeria, 2 in the UK


Team Cymru

•dedicated to making the Internet more secure

•they research the ‘who’ and ‘why’ of malicious internet activity

•www.team-cymru.org


African bot distribution

•Nov 2009 - countries with highest number of infected computers; Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco

•Feb 2010 - Egypt’s numbers increased by 20%


ISfA roadmap

•register as a not-for-profit•website • initiatives - infosec awareness, scholarship

•raising profile


Queries

[email protected]


The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago

The second-best time is now

When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled

Technology

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