ABU DHABI: The Computer Emergency Readiness Team (aeCERT) of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) successfully foiled 1,054 cyber attacks in 2016.
The UAE announcement follows yesterday’s indictment by the US authorities of two Russian state security officials as having masterminded the 2014 hack of 500 million Yahoo email accounts with the help of two known cyber criminals.
”The cyber attacks sought to deface and block government websites, including denial of service, hacking, deception, fraud, and identity and document theft,” said Mohammed Al Zarooni, Director of TRA’s Policy and Programs Department, in a statement to Emirates News Agency Wam.
He noted that private companies were the most vulnerable to such attacks, registering 510 attacks targeted at them, followed by 463 against government entities.
aeCERT conducts several workshops under its advisory, education and awareness services. The workshops under the information security awareness campaign cover a wide range of topics, including social media, social engineering, email security and computer protection.
Kinds of Attacks
The government sector experienced phishing and fraud, web defacement, malicious code, unauthorised access, scans, stolen credentials and others, while the private sector experienced phishing and fraud, malicious code, inappropriate content, and denial of service.
As a cyber security coordination centre, aeCERT aims to improve the UAE’s overall cyber security condition by co-ordinating the sharing of cyber information and coping with the cyber risks faced by the UAE.
aeCERT also focusses on providing advice to the UAE government and educational sectors regarding information security. It collaborates with different sectors of the government, law enforcement and education, to design policies and methodologies to counter cyber threats.
– By Angel Chan