The Russian cyber security lab Kaspersky has announced it is opening an office in Kigali to bring closer its products and services in Rwanda and neighbouring countries.
Eugene Kaspersky the founder of Kaspersky Lab announced during a 30-minute interactive session with Patrick Nyirishema Director General of Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA).
The session is part of a series at the ongoing Transform Africa Summit in Kigali. Over 4000 delegates are attending this summit that concludes on Friday.
The Russian cyber security expert advises African countries to invest largely in cyber security Immune systems to be safer in the digital economy.
“Investing in immunity makes it very costly for the (bad guys) hackers or cyber terrorists to launch attacks against a national or institutional cyber system,” Kaspersky said, leaving many cyber technology enthusiasts marveling.
Currently several institutions and companies are largely investing in cyber security but Kaspersky’s approach is totally different – It is invest and Invest in Immunity of cyber systems.
“African countries should invest in IT security education because this will generate more skilled personnel capable of operating within the emerging digital economy of the continent,” Kaspersky said.
However, Nyirishema inquired more about these cyber Immunity solutions and how they are generated.
In response, Kaspersky urged any African country interested to start from zero by “Building infrastructure that is immune … If you have the plan to develop your own systems from zero do so from immune platforms.”
He said his company is ready to establish partnerships with local companies to share expertise.
Involvement in Cyber Espionage
In response to United States claims that Kaspersky was engaged in high level espionage and attacks directed to the US firms, government agencies and including the recent tampering of elections that brought forward President Donald Trump, Kaspersky rejected the allegations.
“That is Bull shit. Fake stories. Being in a cyber-world of algorithms, there is truth and non-truth (1 is truth 0 is not) if 1 is truth show evidence,” Kaspersky seemingly unhappy explained.
He said there are many countries in the world that are engaged in cyber espionage especially the US. English speaking, Russian speaking and mild Chinese are more active, “we can detect all”.
The session which gained momentum from dozens attending, more questions kept dropping in – a student from Carnegie Melon University asked whether Kaspersky uses machine learning systems to detect people using his products.
“For the past ten years we have been using machine learning systems. We are able to automatically analyse and detect all incoming subscribers.”
However, Kaspersky said that his team detects some criminal gangs and “we see the technology they use …and they also use machine learning language.”
WhatsApp Attack
Kaspersky said he is not surprised about the recent ripping down of whatsApp which caused panic to more than 1.5billion users.
“Unfortunately it [attack] happens so many times a year,” He said.
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