„Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth is projected to reach 3.1 percent in 2018, and to average 3.6 percent in 2019–20“- says Africa’s Pulse, a bi-annual analysis of the state of African economies conducted by the World Bank. Leapfrogging over old technologies and business models Western countries took decades to get used to, African countries are very tech savvy indeed. This fast pace absorption of technologies, the rapidly increasing usage of cloud-based solutions as well as the increasing economic prosperity are bringing new challenges to securing the cyber environment in East Africa. According to Forbes, in Uganda alone cyber-related incidents now cost organizations $50 million for Uganda and even more in neighboring countries. But even these figures are likely to understate the problem: most African countries don’t record such losses in a formalized, mandatory manner and most organizations don’t report any potential or actual losses to authorities.

The topic of preparation for cyber crisis has been chosen as cyber-attacks, targeting both private and public sectors, are becoming bigger and more aggressive in terms of the effect and cost they have. 2017 saw one of the greatest cyber-attacks of all times that affected organizations in various countries all around the world, including East Africa Region. Therefore, nations should be ready to deal with large scale cyber-attacks and have effective crisis management mechanisms at organizational, national and international level to reduce the damage and spill-over effects across national borders. CDEA 2018 conference will be dedicated to effective preparation for cyber crisis. The event will focus on readiness (i.e. how to ensure maximum cyber incident visibility, training and preparation, etc.) and reaction (i.e. immediate actions, incident handling, crisis communication, etc.).