The CyberSafe Foundation, with funding support from Google.org, will launch Resilio Africa, a three-year cybersecurity resilience project aimed at reducing the growing risks of cyberattacks in institutions and communities across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
The project will enhance the cyber resilience of 200 Critical Community Institutions (CCIs) in the region by providing free technical tools, assessments, threat intelligence, and incident response frameworks.
With this intervention, Resilio Africa aimed to protect over two million people and secure more than 15 million public records in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, becoming one of the most ambitious community-building efforts in Africa’s cybersecurity ecosystem.
Senior Programme Manager, Google.org, Haviva Kohl, said: “At Google.org, we believe that access to secure digital systems is a cornerstone of inclusive growth. Our support for CyberSafe Foundation’s CCI cybersecurity efforts, reflect our shared commitment to empowering communities and protecting the institutions that serve them. Resilio Africa will help to ensure that essential community organisations can operate safely and confidently in an increasingly digital world.”
Identifying the challenges across SSA, a brief by CyberSafe Foundation, yesterday, noted that critical community infrastructure in the region was increasingly targeted by cyberattacks, with inadequate resources available to tackle them.
Further citing data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s Global Cybersecurity Index, the statement said more than 60 per cent of African countries fell into the “low commitment” category regarding national cybersecurity readiness.
According to him, this contributes to limited institutional cybersecurity capacity, low awareness of digital threats, and inadequate dedicated security budgets.
CyberSafe noted that Resilio Africa would strengthen cyber resilience of 200 CCIs through technical tools, assessments, customised playbooks and incident response frameworks; provide over 10,000 hours of pro bono cyber consulting to support CCI teams, build human capacity by delivering tiered training for executives, IT teams, and general staff with over 4500 employees and decision-makers trained; protect over two million people; and secure more than 15 million public records in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa.
