Creating awareness in Government on Information Security

The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (SLCERT) jointly hosted the 2nd Lanka Government Network Information Security Awareness Programme recently.

Officials from District Secretariats, Divisional Secretariats and the Chief Secretariat of Western Province also attended the event.

Program Director, Re-engineering Government, ICTA, Wasantha Deshapriya, provided an in-depth introduction to the Scope of the Lanka Government Network (LGN). Dr. Shahani Weerawarana, Chief Technology Officer, ICTA meanwhile described Security Methodologies used in LGN and Rohana Palliyaguru, Information Security Engineer, SLCERT educated the gathering on the Basics of Information Security.

ICTA has carried out some considerable research and developed a High-level Information Security Policy for the Government of Sri Lanka. This policy was formulated, taking into account the views and recommendations of several independent IT security experts and security agencies within the country.

Aruni Goonetilleke, Program Manager, ICTA, spoke on the policy and mentioned that it can be customized according to the needs of specific organizations. 'An up-to-date computer is a risk-free computer', was the title of the presentation by Jithani Dayananda, Information Security Engineer, SLCERT.

"The LGN Project which commenced in October last year, has completed nearly 200 sites and is on-track to complete implementation of the allocated total of 325 Ministries, Departments, Provincial councils, District and Divisional Secretariats by year end to fulfill the vision of a 'Connected-Government'," said Dil Piyaratna, Senior Project Manager, ICTA.

SLCERT was established by ICTA to be the national center for cyber security. SLCERT has been mandated to be the focal point for preventing, protecting against, and responding to cyber security threats and vulnerabilities in Sri Lanka's ICT infrastructure.