22 July, 2009

The Ministry of Public Works (MOPW) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), which is an initiative of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), today, on Wednesday, 22 July 2009, at the MOPW offices in Dubai; regarding coordinating and supporting the response to the cyber security incidents.

The MoU was signed by H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, and Eng. Zahra Salman Nasir Al Aboodi, Executive Director for Housing & Urban Planning at the MOPW.

This MoU is important because all organizations, both public and private, ultimately depend on the information they use. Today, that information is held electronically, and information systems are increasingly connected over the Internet. This raises significant issues for the protection of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information that is critical to the national infrastructure. To help with the provision of that protection, the TRA established the aeCERT that constitutes a cyber security coordination center in the UAE, facilitating the detection, prevention and response to the broad set of cyber security incidents on the Internet for UAE society through its service offerings. The aeCERT mission is to ensure a safer cyber security environment for the cyber users of the UAE through the provision of a highly trained, innovative and competent team of UAE national security engineers and specialists. This team is dedicated to fulfill the vision and goals set by the TRA to serve government, business ans academic sectors in the UAE.

To this end, H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, said: “The signing of this MoU is considered an important step to support and provide the MOPW with high quality services to protect its IT infrastructure through the aeCERT which objectives are to enhance the cyber security law and assist in the creation of new laws; to enhance information security awareness across the UAE; to build national expertise in information security, incident management and computer forensics; to provide a central trusted point of contact for cyber security incident reporting in the UAE; to establish a national center to disseminate information about threats, vulnerabilities, and cyber security incidents; to foster the establishment of and provide assistance to sector-based Computer Security Incidents Response Teams (CSIRTs); to coordinate with domestic and international CSIRTs and related organizations; and to become an active member of recognized security organizations and forums.”