Accra, Ghana//-Smart Infraco Limited today signed a strategic partnership with the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) and global cybersecurity leader Trend Micro to fortify Ghana’s digital infrastructure.
This partnership signed on 24th April 2024, aims to empower government organisations with robust cybersecurity solutions, ensuring a secure and resilient digital ecosystem that can withstand potential cybersecurity threats.
Through NITA’s assessment, it became evident that many public sector networks lacked the necessary security protocols, particularly antivirus protection, leaving government data and systems vulnerable to potential security breaches.
In response to this pressing issue, the Government of Ghana Enterprise Architecture (GGEA) has outlined a standard security architecture, emphasising the mandatory deployment of antivirus software across all government systems and end nodes.
To fulfil this mandate, Smart Infraco as a technical partner of NITA, would install Trend Antivirus Servers at the two national Data Centres to efficiently deliver antivirus services to government agencies nationwide.
Under this strategic alliance, Smart Infraco will also provide these services:
Deep Security Deployment
Smart Infraco will deploy Trend Micro’s Deep Security solution within the national data centre.
Deep Security would provide comprehensive protection at both the server side and endpoint levels, including intrusion prevention, anti-malware, and integrity monitoring, safeguarding critical systems and data.
Worry-Free Services Suites
Leveraging Trend Micro’s innovative suite, Smart Infraco will offer government organisations worry-free cybersecurity.
This will include Endpoint Security for defending against ransomware and advanced attacks, Email Security for real-time protection against targeted attacks, spam, phishing, and viruses, Collaboration Security for safeguarding online collaboration tools to prevent data loss, and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) for automating threat detection and response.
This initiative will enforce compliance with security architecture, and safeguard government data and infrastructure against cyber threats.
Speaking at the ceremony in Accra before signing the deal, the Director-General of NITA, Richard Okyere-Fosu said: “NITA in collaboration with the Cyber Security Authority is responsible for the Government Computer Emergency Response Team (Gov CERT) which is part of the National CERT operated by the Cybersecurity Authority.
The National CERT serves as the national point of coordination for cybersecurity incidents and has sectorial domains including that of government which is operated by NITA. NITA, by the CERT framework, coordinates all cybersecurity incidents across government and reports to the Cybersecurity Authority”.
Antivirus therefore is one of the missing components for our security model. This is why this partnership comes at a very opportune time. We are hoping that the antivirus services will keep the integrity of systems and end nodes within the government domain and prevent some of the cybersecurity incidents we have been happening in the past”.
He added that the government purchased Trend Micro services some years back as part of the deployment of the eGovernment infrastructure.
“This partnership rides on the back of this long-standing relationship and even deepens it further by choosing the Managed Service Provider (MSP) approach which is a more cost-effective and value-for-money approach to government”, Mr Okyere-Fosu said.
He therefore encouraged all government agencies to take advantage of this service to secure their environment and stay compliant with Ghana Enterprise Architecture (GGEA) and Interoperability Framework (GIF).
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, Alexander Yaw Arphul said looking at the nature of fraud in the country’s cybersecurity, “this is the right time for this kind of collaboration”.
He urged the parties to continue to collaborate to enable them to manage any cyber threat in the country.
On his part, the Mediterranean, Middle East & Africa Volume Business Manager of Trend Micro, Mazen Al-Adhami assured that the strategic partnership would them the opportunity to protect Ghana’s IT infrastructure, businesses, and its people from cyber-attacks and cyber threats.
Also commenting on the partnership, the CEO of Smart Infraco, Harkirit Singh said with a single focus on building and open access, the company wants all the agencies to be connected seamlessly with high-level security.
This is because they have the internet and solutions that drive the consumption of public services in the country. That has been his company’s mission, he added.
“Under the leadership of the current Director-General of NITA, we have been able to achieve a significant amount of digital connectivity across Ghana.
We recently again with the team from NITA, under the leadership of the Director-General of NITA, were able to deliver a very significant transformation programme. That is connecting hospitals, police stations and districts across Ghana with 100 data facilities”, Mr Singh said.
In his remarks, the Director-General of Cyber Security Authority, Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako said the idea of collaboration between NITA and its technical partners is not the first initiative to project the government’s networks.
He noted that several initiatives had been taken by NITA and its partners to safeguard the country from cybersecurity challenges.
Instructively, Smart Infraco is the technical partner of NITA providing cutting-edge technology and infrastructure to accelerate the pace of digitalisation in Ghana.
The company offers over 1,000km of high-speed fibre along the eastern corridor of Ghana, a secure Tier 3 data centre infrastructure with backup and disaster recovery, as well as digital solutions that enable businesses and government institutions to realise their true digital potential.
It also provides end-to-end infrastructure solutions in storage, security, support, and advice – to both government and private entities under a single window.
Trend Micro on the other hand is an American Japanese cyber security software company. The company develops enterprise security software for servers, containers, and cloud computing environments, networks, and endpoints.
NITA is a public service institution established by Act 771 in 2008 as the ICT policy implementing arm of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation.
It is the agency responsible for implementing Ghana’s IT policies with its mandate including identifying, promoting and developing innovative technologies, standards, guidelines and practices among government agencies and local governments, among others.
