Addis Ababa; May 04/2023: The Information Network Security Administration of Ethiopia (INSA) has saved over 19 billion birrs in cyber-attack prevention in the last nine months of the 2022/23 fiscal year.

Mr. Solomon Soka, the Director General of the Information Network Security Administration, explained at the press conference the nine-month plan implementation report for the 2022/23 fiscal year.

The Director General gave a detailed explanation based mainly on cyber security vulnerability, cyber security threat, cyber-attack targeted institutions, and control of information and communication technologies.

Mr. Solomon Soka mentioned that INSA responded to 4422 cyber-attacks and attempted attacks in the country during the last nine months of the 2022/23 budget year. Some 4,272 of them responded, and 150 caused damage.

In addition, he added that the Administration achieved 94.86 percent of the performance in countering cyber-attack attempts in the last nine months.

Were that cyber-attack attempts succeeded, distributed denial-of-service for a certain period and loss of revenue, preventing operations, theft, and loss of data, hiding/encrypting data and claim money to retrieve and fraud communication channels to generate income illegally would have happened, explained the chief Director General.

The Director General stated that most of the institutions targeted by cyber-attackers were financial institutions, security institutions, media institutions, key government institutions, ministries, regional offices, hospitals, and higher education institutions.

The director general explained the types and targets of cyber-attacks in the last nine months. More frequently attempted cyber-attacks were Website attacks, Malware, Infrastructure Scans, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS), and Infiltration.  

In a vulnerability survey conducted in some 80 institutions from various sectors (34 government and 46 private), some 486 cyber–attack risk vulnerabilities were found in a website, network infrastructure, and mobile applications. Some 129 were high-risk, 217 were medium, and 140 were low-risk.

The Director General announced that 3123 various information and communication technology equipment were requested to import, but INSA denied permission to some 453 of them since they were risky for national security.

 In general, the Administration managed to reduce cyber security risks and vulnerability focus on four sectors (media institutions, health institutions, national security institutions, and infrastructure development) that indicate the level of national cyber security risk, Mr. Solomon stated.

According to the director general, INSA has prevented cyber-attacks, countered attacks, controlled technologies, suppressed dangerous security threats, and saved potential national damage. Finally, the Information Network Security Administration will strengthen its work to ensure our country's digital sovereignty and protect our national interests in cyberspace, said Mr. Solomon Soka.