By Ziyad Al-Asheikh
IN 2013, former US President Barack Obama signed a presidential order calling for developing the infrastructure of his country’s information security systems. After signing the order, he said that e-security represented a major economic challenge to the US. Both the US and Japan came together in 2013 to coordinate cybersecurity policies that were ratified by both countries. As a result, the US recently announced that it would protect Japan’s information systems as part of a bilateral security cooperation agreement.
Despite the fact that the Kingdom’s economic system relies heavily on information technology, cybersecurity in the Kingdom is poor and not commensurate with the Kingdom’s large economy and strategic importance. Security threats are on the increase. In 2012, Aramco reported a major hacking attempt into its systems. In fact, the current security procedures taken to protect electronic data are not enough and cannot help the country deal with more sophisticated security threats in the future.
The more we rely on e-trading and e-transactions, the more attempts there will be to hack our systems. We have two basic problems. First, the information technology sector’s growth is slow. Each time the system of a government agency gets hacked, we have to reconsider the type of technology we are using and to what extent such technology can remain secure. Secondly, information technology systems are weak and need to be strengthened and enhanced. We need to overcome these two problems to ensure better and stronger protection for our security systems.
An independent budget should be allocated to improve the security of all of our governmental information technology systems. We have national companies that specialize in providing sophisticated technology and security systems. We should encourage them more in order to help them enhance information security systems and we should use their services. All government agencies should coordinate and work together to ensure that they have strong security systems.
