Algeria’s Most Cyber-Secured Companies
Experts in digitization ranked public banks, the oil company Sonatrach, and the Sonalgaz Company, in addition to other sovereign ministries, among the bodies that spend the most on securing their websites from cyber-attacks and data breaches, while they stressed the need for the rest of the ministries, official bodies, and companies to speed up securing their locations as soon as possible.
On the other hand, the new Personal Data Protection Law, recently issued in the Official Gazette, requires all ministries, public and private institutions to protect the data of their services from attacks, which obliges them to take new urgent measures, in light of the attacks that Algerian websites are constantly exposed to.
In this context, Bachir Tadjeddine, a digitization expert, said in a statement to Echorouk that the Personal Data Protection Law No. 07/18 recently issued in the Official Gazette requires institutions, ministries and official bodies to quickly secure their data, contracts with companies specialized in the field and allocate part of their budgets for this purpose, and this varies according to the size of the company or organization, its branches, and the number of computers available on it.
The speaker counts the presence of 20 Algerian companies active in the field of data security operating within the Algerian domain, where state institutions remain obligated to cooperate with them, to protect their data, while he explained that the systems approved to date for cyber security are foreign, but he reassured that the latter guarantees great effectiveness in protecting the data of companies and ministries, but the security process – according to the speaker – must be renewed annually, with part of the budget allocated each year for this purpose and keeping abreast of all developments in this field.
Tadjeddine Bachir, who previously held the position of president of the Association of Algerians Active in Digitization, says that in light of the political, strategic and even economic conditions that the world is witnessing and the targeting of major institutions and bodies in countries by hackers, the time has come, according to him, for the Algerian authorities and even employers, heads of institutions, and directors of agencies of various specializations to secure websites, virtual pages, and virtual transactions.
Tadjeddine explained that the companies that have made important progress in this field are Sonatrach and Sonelgaz, in addition to public and even private banks, and some sovereign ministries, given the sensitivity of their data, as they spend huge sums annually to secure data and follow a special policy to ensure they have not been subjected to any cyber attack, and this is evident through the fact that they have not recorded any hacking in recent months, while other sites, although linked to ministries and sensitive bodies, remain victims of “hackers” and major cyber attacks.
Algerian banks have tended for some time to gradually abandon paper in their correspondence, through the obligation to publish reports and statements of financial institutions, through the digital portal of the Bank of Algeria, instead of paper transactions, which are complementary to the compulsory digital procedures and began to implement this procedure starting from the beginning of the 1st of last December, in parallel with the tightening of procedures for securing digital transactions.
According to an instruction issued by the General Directorate of the General Inspectorate of the Bank of Algeria, and signed by the CEO of the Inspectorate, Faiza Ayadi, and published by “Echorouk” at the time, “all banks and financial institutions have been informed that starting from the 1st of last December, all transfers of statements and reports directed by the General Secretariat for the Banking Committee, for the General Directorate of General Registration and the General Directorate for Studies, is done through the Exchanges Gate, with special procedures for securing transactions”.
