Oman has stepped up its efforts to ensure government employees are equipped to combat the rising number and severity of cyber-threats, the country’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has announced.
Real-time training to repel constant cyber attacks against Oman’s web space is in full flow, according to CERT.
The Sultanate has dealt with 16,000 attacks so far this year, on top of the millions stopped by firewalls, according to the agency.
The CERT team is now focusing on training government staff to deal with the threats and has staged mock attacks on networks.
Of the 16,000 cyber attacks this year, critical national infrastructure has been the most sought-after target. “There is also an increased attack via ransomware and email blackmailing,” according to Badr Al Salehi, CERT’s director general.
Oman has continued training and awareness programmes to equip private and government firms to defend against threats.
The latest in the series of programmes has trained 17 staff from government institutions as a part of its plan to combat cyber threats and check the strength of IT systems in the country.
“The purpose of this training is to give participants an in-depth knowledge on how to conduct penetration testing in real environments such as government agencies, financial institutions and other key installations,” an Oman CERT spokesman said.
The project started officially in 2015 by training 40 employees from government bodies.
A recent report by Booz Allen Hamilton showed that online threats affect a quarter of users in the Sultanate due to digitisation.
