The wide reach of technological usage and the increase in cyber attacks across the globe, highlights the importance of implementing a uniformed mechanism and uniformed rules of procedure, evidence in a bid to reduce security incidents, prevent IT crimes and most importantly to establish a culture of cyber security.
These sentiments were expressed by Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya, at the 11th Annual National Conference on Cyber Security, held in Colombo Yesterday.
The 11th Annual National Cyber Security Conference is an annual event, organized by Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team | Coordination Centre (Sri Lanka CERT|CC) and Ministry of Telecommunication, Digital infrastructure and Foreign Employment.
“Cyber crime threats would also certainly enhance the scope for cyber security jobs and the professionals to be involved in the system to ensure that all the stakeholders would have the benefits of a secure cyber world,” Jayasuriya noted.
In 2015, Sri Lanka become a fully fledged member of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. He pointed out that hence it is essential to introduce a unformed mechanism and rules of procedure and evidence, while bringing all parties together under the umbrella of Budapest convention to mitigate the cyber security incidents. The convention further provides judicial officers, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders with capacity building opportunities and also creates more opportunities for better understanding of all relevant areas that are required for an effective and efficient investigation and prosecution.
“However having such mechanisms should not distract our attention from having a proper system of prevention. In 2015, the cost of data breaches globally reached US $ 59.6 billion mark, however in 2019 it is estimated that it will rise to US $ 2.1 trillion,” Jayasuriya said.
“There are certain challenges that one will have to face in mitigating the cyber security threats in Sri Lanka,” he said adding that “some of them can be identified as lack of awareness among citizens on cyber crimes, Lack of readiness among the stakeholders, Gaps in laws in relation to modern cyber crimes and lack of cooperation among the relevant stakeholders as well as countries.”
“Cyber security and provisions related to cyber security crimes are interconnected, he said adding that cyber security deals with prevention while provisions relating to cyber crimes would always take care of criminal justice aspects or the criminal justice response to the breaches of cyber security.
Jayasuriya said Sri Lanka has created the necessary policy framework to meet these challenges associated with cyber crimes thereby providing necessary tools to ensure gathering of electronic evidences and to obtain legal assistance.
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