Is this Country Prepared for Cyber Threats? [opinion]

Technology has a way of forcing changes in perceptions of threats and possible defence postures.

Those who ignore technology lose and they include Napoleon Bonaparte who failed to embrace steam power and Adolph Hitler whose disdain for Jews made him science-blind.

The current technology is cyber, still in its infancy. A number of countries are aware of the dangers, among them being the cyber-savvy president of the United States, Barack Obama.

In the 2008 campaigns, Obama promised to make cyber threat a top security priority.

As president he has generated interest in cyber security by creating a cyber command with hackers being encouraged to join the government.

It is a call to cyber-based patriotism to confront and outwit supposed cyber warriors from Russia, China, and Korea.

Obama's action shows the gravity of the threats to many countries that are increasingly dependent on inanimate "e-things."

These e-things include e-mail, e-media, e-learning, e-governments, and e-defence of military or civil type.

Each has to contend with "e-threats" that ignore geopolitical boundaries, are trans-national and somehow "democratic" in that any brilliant person, anywhere in the world, with access to internet, can potentially penetrate "secure" databases.

This means that some countries might have big cyberarmies and even "cybermungikis" that are hard to trace.

For this reason, the United States and other technologically advanced countries spend billions of dollars researching on "e-threats".

Some advocate drastic and probably "illegal" measures that include cyber counter-strikes, "hot pursuit", and even cyber-incitement of people in target states.

Such actions would be clandestinely taken so as to maintain the image of "innocence" and evoke "plausible deniability."

While e-threats to military nerve centres exist with hackers breaking into elaborate security systems, it is the disruptions of everyday life that is worrying in places like Kenya.

Occasional malfunctions which should be detected and corrected quickly are expected but when the corrections, particularly in major computer dependent institutions, do not take place, then serious e-threats questions arise.

First, is it simple incompetence associated with probable institutional failure to invest in proper human capital to maintain IT operations?

Second, is the institutional nerve centre so externally controlled that it is beholden to external organs for security?

The reluctance of such controllers to empower local cyber agents to handle systemic failures is itself an e-threat.

Third, and most serious, is it the work of hackers and "cybermungikis?"

Hackers are of many stripes. Some are youngish prank stars who get excited by the challenge of getting into complicated and 'secure' cyber forts or institutions.

In Nairobi, some youth have supposedly figured out how to get into secure places without breaking cyber locks by simply crawling undetected under cyber fences and perimeter walls.

There being no visible evidence of cyber-break-ins, it then takes time for the affected organisation to notice what may be wrong. Others are crooks, bank robbers who siphon millions and generate fake documents.

There are also cyber-terrorists sending threatening messages to individuals and institutions, including media houses and diplomatic missions.

Whatever the explanation, incompetence, dependency, or hacking, Kenya is seemingly unprepared for e-threats.

Unreliability of power supply disrupts or destroys computer and internet based work and yet no satisfactory answer for frequent blackouts comes from Reddy Kilowatt.

Could it be due to grid computer hacking?

Since institutions do not control their computing systems, or have competent trouble-shooters, they virtually close for days when something goes wrong.

Nationally, failure to engage in serious e-threat research and preparation makes the country vulnerable.

When former US President Bill Clinton visited neighbouring Uganda, for instance, Kenya's communication system was virtually paralysed for as long as Clinton was there.

Kenya could do nothing to safeguard its interests.

The new "real" threat, therefore, is inability to stop being shut down by a country unhappy with Kenya or a "cybermungiki" somewhere in Mogadishu, Washington, London, Beijing, or even in a Nairobi slum.

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