Call to action for strong encryption to ensure online safety

By Elias Hakizimana.

As the world celebrate the Global Encryption Day 2022, Internet Society-Rwanda Chapter calls the wider community of internet users to have strong encryption to ensure their information are safe while online.

Encryption is the foundation of the internet and in a simple language, is the process of converting information or data into a code, especially to prevent unauthorized access.

Teachers, headteachers, IT technicians and consultants a well as online business owners have been gathered to talk about encryption as public safety.

Emmanuel Mfitumukiza, Chairperson of Internet Society Rwanda Chapter explains that the talk about encryption is needed not because people are not protected online, but because the number of end users of internet have increased following the growth of online services.

“We need to inform the public that security is a necessity, and as part of this, we are also in cyber month, we have to do awareness and tell people about their role to take care of online services, presence and reputation because at the end of the day, many businesses are done online and you can do more transactions online; and if you are not delivering secured services to your clients, you are losing your money,” Mfitumukiza said.

“This awareness is vital because internet is a general-purpose network and is a common infrastructure, protection is for all of us, we have to tell the public that encryption is one of the foundations of the internet, and who ever tries to undermine it is putting our lives in dangers,” he added.

Awareness in education sector

Mfitumukiza highlighted that the awareness of encryption should start in schools because education is the most important factor in preparing the next generation.

“We need to educate people in education sector and inform them because they can transfer knowledge to the new generation. We are much more involved in education sector because it is where we have many people from different locations (schools) and they have capacity to transfer the message to the entire community,” he explained.

Alarming issues around online safety

Cyriaque Havugabaramye, Lecturer of Information Technology (IT) in Davis College said that there are many alarming issues including hackers, information technology abuse, and calls everyone to be careful when he/she is connected on internet.

“Nowadays there are many crimes committed, involving computers and networks, that is why everyone who uses internet should be careful. Unfortunately, many internet users are not aware of what is happening, because, Information-Technology is new in our community, people just use computers without the knowledge of the bad side, they use them for communication, making calls, for exchanging the data and information, but they do not think about the crimes (cyber-crimes),” he warns.

Cybercrimes are committed by those who want to take advantage of people’s ignorance to gain money, information that they can use for different purposes which in most cases are not good.

“Such cases should involve children pornography, identity safety by taking others’ photos and use them to create different accounts in those people’s names and cheat people using your names to get money out of them, or to mislead the community by using the fake identity,” Havugabaramye explained.

Cyber crimes can be committed without having the computers connected to the internet, like plagiarism where students or other people can copy other’s work and submit it in their names.

“There are three steps of information; there is information in storage, there is information in transit, and there is information under processing, even when the computer in not connected to the internet, people especially students can plagiarize, by copying the work of someone and submit it in their own names, and they can still some parts of the computer,” Havugabaramye said.

Apart from encryption, creating a strong password, keep changing or updating it, is one of the supplementing measures to stay safe online according to IT experts.

Encryption is not only for IT people

The encryption is not only for IT people because once the information is misused, but the consequences also affect the whole community. “That’s why everyone should be aware of what is going on” he said.

“We need to be informed and we all have a concern on privacy and data protection, do not think it is for IT professionals. If you are informed, you are (digital literate), make sure you broadcast the message, inform others, take action, we need to take action if someone tries to undermine security,”  

Teachers’ views

“We need to make a two-step verification so that no one else can access our data and information just to make sure we are safe when online,” said Phocas Imanishimwe, a teacher at G.S Nyirarukobwa, Bugesera District.

Marie Josine Ihirwe, another teacher from Bugesera District said that confidential data and information should be protected. “I should inform other people how to be protected too,” she said.

Internet Society Rwanda Chapter currently promotes, build and defend the internet through different initiatives that include community education and mobilization.

The Government of Rwanda passed Law No 26/2017 of 31/05/2017 establishing the National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA) which was operationalized at the end of 2020, to coordinate national cybersecurity functions across the private and public sectors to ensure the security and resilience of Rwanda’s ICT ecosystem.

The number of Internet users in the world is increasing exponentially. Experts recorded a growth of 1,157% in the number of internet users from 2000-2019 (We Are Social, 2019). Furthermore, as of January 2021, there are 4.66 billion internet users across the globe (Data Reportal, 2021). An average of 59.5% penetration rate was recorded worldwide.

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