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A National Structure Will Be Created in Moldova to Combat Cyber Security Incidents

22 November 2017
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A national center for response to cyber security incidents will be created in Moldova, according to the General Director of the Special Telecommunications Center (STC) Serghei Popovici, who participated in the “ALERT Cyber Drill” Regional Conference. The event began on Tuesday, November 21, in Chisinau, and will last until Thursday, November 23.
 
According to Serghei Popovici, the Center will deal directly with the prevention of and response to cyber security incidents. He believes that the project to create such a center will soon reach the Government for consideration and adoption.
 
Moldova already has a cyber security center, CERT-GOV-MD, whose responsibility is to respond to security incidents in information systems. It does not, however, cover all aspects of cyber security. “In case an incident occurs in the energy sector or in the banking sector, we will not be able to coordinate or manage it,” Natalia Spinu, head of CERT-GOV-MD, told Media-azi.md.
 
She pointed out that there were more than 6 million attempts of cyber attacks in Moldova in 2016 alone. The need to create such a center is becoming increasingly strong, especially as the neighbor country, Ukraine, has recently faced a series of cyber attacks in the energy and banking sectors and at strategic sites, such as airports.
 
According to Natalia Spinu, some officials underestimate the importance of cyber security and do not invest in this sector. “We have super advanced technologies, but we don’t have specialists in the field,” she said, adding that such courses are usually done abroad and are very expensive.
 
Ana Chirita, Executive Director of the National Association of ICT Companies (ATIC), also present at the event, told Media-azi.md that the level of education of graduates from educational institutions in Moldova does not meet the requirements of the companies in this field.
 
The ALERT Cyber Drill Conference was organized by the Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union and aimed to improve communication and incident response capabilities of participating teams from the CIS and Europe.
 
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the most important standardization organization in the field of telecommunications, currently under the aegis of the United Nations. The ITU headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.