Media Archives - EG-FinCIRT

EG-FinCIRT Acquires the Membership of OIC-CERT

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 13:17:33 +0000

EG-FinCIRT Acquires the Membership of OIC-CERT

A New Testimony on the CBE’s Compliance and Implementation of the Highest International Cybersecurity Standards

January 21, 2024
4:17 pm

The Computing Incident Response Team for the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT) of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has successfully obtained the membership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Teams (OIC-CERT), emphasizing on Egypt’s pioneering strides in this dynamic field.

This membership comes as another proof of the CBE’s successful strategy to build an integrated framework to reinforce cybersecurity in the financial and banking sectors, and in recognition of EG-FinCIRT’s endeavors during the past years. Furthermore, it demonstrates the EG-FinCIRT’s keenness to adopt and comply with international cybersecurity standards and policies, as well as ensuring their comprehensive implementation.

In this context, Dr. Sherif Hazem, CBE’s Sub-Governor for the Cybersecurity Sector emphasized, “The Central Bank of Egypt’s membership in OIC-CERT reflects its keenness to continuously build capacities, while capitalizing on the regional and international expertise in the cybersecurity arena, underlining the unprecedented developments achieved by Egypt in this field.”

Dr. Ibrahim Mostafa, Assistant Sub-Governor of the CBE and Director of EG-FinCIRT stated that “This benchmark represents another significant addition to the efforts of the EG-FinCIRT to keep up with the continuous developments in the field of cybersecurity. It also contributes to enhancing the Egyptian financial sector institutions’ ability to withstand and mitigate cyber threats, as well as raising cybersecurity awareness and empowering the cooperation in research and innovation.”

The membership of the Central Bank of Egypt in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) comes in alignment to the CBE’s strategy, whereas it aims to promote cooperation and integration, sponsor the exchange of knowledge and expertise, develop cooperative initiatives, and enable partnerships among member states in the cybersecurity field.

In this manner, the CBE’s strategy aims to enhance the participation of the EG-FinCIRT in implementing the National Cybersecurity Strategy efficiently and effectively, in addition to support building the technical capacities of state entities to enable timely response and coordinate the mitigation of cybersecurity attacks.

It is also worth mentioning that, EG-FinCIRT has successfully obtained, in May 2023, the accreditation and membership in the Global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), after meeting all the technical and organizational requirements, to become Egypt’s first sectoral cybersecurity incident response team internationally recognized by FIRST.

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The Central Bank of Egypt Hosts a Delegation from The Central Bank of Nigeria to Share the Egyptian Pioneering Cybersecurity Experience

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 08:33:21 +0000

Within the Context of Enhancing the Cooperation with African Countries

November 5, 2023
11:33 am

In line with Egypt’s commitment to expanding its collaboration with African nations, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) welcomed a delegation from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), comprising a specialized technical team. Their visit aimed to leverage Egypt’s exceptional expertise in establishing and operating the first Sectoral Computer Incident Response Team dedicated to the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT).

The two-day visit of the Nigerian delegation started on the 2^nd of October 2023, with the objective of enhancing bilateral coordination and cooperation in the realm of cybersecurity. During their visit, the technical team from the Cybersecurity Emergency Response Centre for the Nigerian Financial Sector (NFICERT) capitalized on the technical and operational know-how of the Egyptian cybersecurity professionals while exploring the activities and services offered by EG-FinCIRT and acquired insights into the detection, response, and mitigation of cybersecurity incidents. Moreover, the team delved into penetration testing, learned about techniques utilized in digital forensic laboratories, and reviewed procedures for analyzing malware, contributing to building up the technical capacities of the Nigerian specialized team.

Dr. Sherif Hazem, CBE’s Sub-Governor for the Cyber Security Sector, emphasized that “The Central Bank of Egypt has adopted a comprehensive strategy to bolster cybersecurity in the financial and banking sectors. This strategy includes the establishment of a banking security system aligned with the state’s plans to transform into a cashless society. The Nigerian delegation’s visit comes as an affirmation of the proactive efforts of the CBE to strengthen cooperation with response teams in other African Central Banks. This is especially important given the growing threats to the continent’s digital infrastructure. Additionally, African central banks are eager to benefit from the CBE’s pioneering experience, particularly its success in establishing and operating the first Sectoral Computer Incident Response Team dedicated to the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT). The EG-FinCIRT has also received accreditation and membership in the ‘Global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams – FIRST’.”

Dr. Ibrahim Mostafa, Assistant Sub-Governor of the CBE and Director of EG-FinCIRT, stressed that “The Central Bank of Egypt recognizes the critical importance of cybersecurity in light of the increasing digital transformation and the ever-evolving, complex threats and challenges confronting the digital national infrastructure. This underscores the need to strengthen partnerships and exchange experiences among Response Teams from various Central Banks. In this context, EG-FinCIRT has focused on sharing its technical and operational experiences with the team responsible for managing the Nigerian Financial Industry Cybersecurity Emergency Response Team (NFICERT). This acknowledges the pivotal role played by the CBE in enhancing and building technological capacities in fellow African nations.”

The Egyptian and Nigerian sides reached an agreement to expand the frameworks of cooperation and intensify the exchange of experiences in the field of cybersecurity and national capacity building. They also committed to ongoing discussions regarding the development of a security strategy for Nigerian financial sector institutions.

This visit represents the second delegation from an African central bank to EG-FinCIRT this year, affirming CBE’s leadership in cybersecurity across the continent. It also illustrates the eagerness of African countries to leverage Egyptian expertise in this domain and gain comprehensive insights into the advanced monitoring mechanisms deployed by EG-FinCIRT, which play a vital role in the proactive monitoring and protection of critical digital infrastructures.

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The Central Bank of Egypt Shares its Pioneering Cybersecurity Experience to the Ghanaian Counterpart

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:44:20 +0000

Within the Context of Enhancing the Cooperation with African Countries

August 10, 2023
5:44 pm

As a part of the Central Bank of Egypt’s continuous efforts to strengthen cooperation with fellow African countries, a delegation of the Central Bank of Ghana concluded its official visit to the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), which took place between July 31^st and August 3^rd, 2023. The visit aimed to exchange expertise in the field of cybersecurity and benefit from Egypt’s outstanding know-how in this field.

The visit of the Ghanaian delegation is an affirmation of the pioneering role of the CBE in the field of Cybersecurity at the African level, backed by its successful establishment and operation of the first Sectoral Computer Incident Response Team dedicated to the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT).

The Ghanaian delegation capitalized on the technical and operational expertise of the Cybersecurity sector professionals, as well as studying the structure and the tasks of the Cybersecurity’s central departments, particularly the Computing Incident Response Team for Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT) to build the capacities and enhance the efforts directed towards developing the Financial Industry Command Security Operations Centre (FICSOC).

The Ghanaian delegation tackled the future partnerships and cooperation mechanisms between the Central Bank of Egypt and the Central Bank of Ghana, in addition to highlighting the vital role of applying the Cybersecurity framework for the African financial institutions to enhance regional cyber capabilities. Moreover, the visit included showcasing of governance regulations and reporting dedicated channels adopted at the Central Bank of Egypt to respond to all types of cyber incidents.

The Central Bank of Egypt provided the Central Bank of Ghana with an overall view of the structure, objectives, and strategy in place at the Cybersecurity Sector, as well as EG-FinCIRT’s governance regulations, and its critical role in detecting, responding to, and mitigating cybersecurity incidents. The visit also aimed at identifying the adopted mechanisms and regulations of granting FinTech solutions’ licenses, as well as FinTech applications, while learning about other services provided by the Cybersecurity Sector at the CBE to the Financial sector in Egypt. Additionally, the delegation reviewed the Cybersecurity readiness assessment strategies and the assurance program applied to help protect Egyptian banks and financial institutions against different cyberattacks, besides coordinating and boosting the collaboration between the Central Bank of Egypt and the Financial Industry Command Security Operation Centre (FICSOC) at the Central Bank of Ghana.

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Egypt’s FinCIRT acquires the accreditation and membership of the Global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams – FIRST

Tue, 09 May 2023 11:37:57 +0000

EG-Fincirt acquires the accreditation and membership of first

CBE's Efforts towards the implementation of international cybersecurity standards

May 9, 2023
1:37 pm

The Computing Incident Response Team for the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT) of the Central Bank of Egypt has successfully obtained the accreditation and membership of the Global Forum Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), after fulfilling all technical and organizational requirements within a short period of time, to become the 1^st internationally recognized sectoral CIRT in Egypt.

This recognition is part of CBE’s strategy to build an integrated framework to reinforce cybersecurity in the financial and banking sectors, and praising EG-FinCIRT endeavors during the past four years, and its keenness to adopt and comply with international cybersecurity standards and policies, as well as ensure their implementation, which facilitated the swift completion of all audits and assessments carried out by the specialists of (FIRST) over the past four months.

The accreditation and membership of the (FIRST) Forum aim to enhance and expand the collaboration and coordination through exchanging the expertise among member teams towards combating cybers crimes, facilitating rapid responses, supporting the development of common means of data exchange among members, and facilitating effective handling and responding to cyberthreats. The global forum also contributes to the capacity building of technical competencies of the members’ response centers and teams, by educating them with the international best practices in this field, as well as availing instantaneous exchange of security and incident information, to empower members’ response teams to mitigate and handle cyber-attacks and security threats, while stimulating rapid response and proactive measures and procedures.

FIRST forum also supports cooperation and strategic partnerships between countries and global institutions, links incident response teams from all member countries together and facilitates the exchange of technical expertise and cybersecurity intelligence. It also allows members to attend specialized seminars that bring together cybersecurity experts, training courses, and workshops, as well as gather incident response teams to participate in the Annual Conference on Computer Security Incident Handling, in addition to providing the latest publications and best practices guides on cybersecurity and internet governance, in addition to availing access to seminars and panel discussions between member teams.

EG-FinCIRT membership in FIRST Forum comes in line with CBE’s strategy, which aims to enhance the participation of the Computer Incident Response Center for the financial sector in implementing the national cybersecurity strategy efficiently and effectively; while improving the ability of state institutions and authorities to respond in a timely manner, cooperate and coordinate in preventing cyber-attacks.

CBE’s membership in the forum also contributes to supporting and raising Egypt’s Global Cybersecurity index), which also contributes to boost the confidence of the country’s digital economy, supports in the attraction of foreign investments, and enhances the security and safety of critical banking infrastructure through immediate global exchange of the latest incident response frameworks and international best practices.

The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a global leader in cyber incident response, bringing together a diverse group of cyber incident response teams from government entities, businesses, and educational institutions, with currently over 600 members from around the globe.

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