Qatar Cyberspace Conference Compliance & Assurance

The National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) organized on Monday May 16,2022 a conference entitled “Cyberspace in the State of Qatar: Compliance and Assurance “ with the presence of His Excellency Mr. Jassim Bin Seif Al Sulaiti- Minister of Transport and HE Engineer Abdulrahman Bin Ali Al Malki- President of the National Cyber Security Agency, which aimed to promote and raise awareness about the role of the Agency around the topic of Compliance and Assurance.

 

In this regard, Engineer Dana Al-Abdullah, Director of National Governance and Assurance Affairs at the National Cybersecurity Agency, said that the State of Qatar is keen to be proactive and keep pace with the continuous changes in the cybersecurity scene, as we have adopted the concept of shared responsibility and involve the private sector and the supply chain in this responsibility.

 

She added, "Accreditation programs for cyber service providers were the first step to open bridges of mutual cooperation, and this resulted in identifying the readiness of the Qatari market for this type of partnership between the public sector and the private sector, as well as knowledge of the need of the public sector for this type of activity based on mutual trust and enhancing the importance of governance and assurance."

In the same regard, Ms. Mariam Haji, Director of the Information Systems Department at the Public Prosecution, stressed that the accreditation obtained by the Public Prosecution is an incentive to develop and improve performance and raise the efficiency of its operations, pointing out that the Public Prosecution realizes that information security is an ongoing journey and a permanent conflict between good and evil, especially with the development of tools and technology.

She explained that “the Public Prosecution has embarked on the project of complying with the national information assurance standards. This initiative was sponsored, supervised and followed up by the senior administration represented by His Excellency the Attorney General. Thus, the Public Prosecution is the first entity in the country to attain the certification in order to support the national trends in the transition to a secure digital society”.

Within the National Information Security Compliance framework (NICSF) The National Governance and Assurance Affairs at the National Cybersecurity Agency has issued the first National Information Assurance NIA certificate of Compliance to  the Public Prosecution which was later awarded to Microsoft.

 
Under the Qatar Common Criteria scheme (QCCS) The National Cyber Security Agency recognized the IT security vetting labs of: TUV Informationstechniik GmbH- Germany,  Beam Teknoloji- Turkey and the National Testing and Vetting Laboratory.

 

In addition, Advisory Accreditations were awarded to Deloitte & Touche Qatar and PricewaterhouseCoopers-Qatar.

 

DERMALOG Identification Systems-GmbH Germany and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd-China  were awarded with certificates of compliance under QCCS.

 

During the conference, the National Cybersecurity Agency and CREST International signed a memorandum of understanding which aimed at raising competencies and capabilities in the field of information security by offering international accreditation certificates for service providers and professional certificates for individuals working in this field.

 
Mr. Roland Johnson, President of Crest International, delivered a speech entitled:  The Importance of Accreditation and Compliance.

 

The conference witnessed a panel discussion on ensuring information security managed by Eng. Noura Al-Abdullahfrom The National Cyber Security Agency, with the participation of Dr. Ashraf Ismail from the National Cyber Security Agency, Mr. Mahamat Sakir, CEO of Beam Teknoloji,  Mr. Kamel Zayan, Chief Cybersecurity Officer of Huawei, and Mr. Daniele Luzi, Director of Customer Engineering for Google.

 

The conference included a workshop on the compliance and accreditation program including participants from several sectors, in addition to a group of specialists and researchers in the field of information security.

 

The Agency organized the conference "Cyberspace in the State of Qatar: Compliance and Guarantee" with the participation of many local and external bodies, where the Public Prosecution was one of the first institutions to join this program and attain the National Information Assurance certificate  were they  made great efforts during the pilot phase of the program and applied its standards and dealt with accredited audit service providers, which proved their constant endeavor and keenness to raise their level of efficiency in information security.

The Cyber Security Agency aims to maintain and regulate the national cybersecurity and to promote and protect the vital interests of the state of Qatar in the face of cyberspace threats through programs and projects, most notably the programs of which are compliance with national information security standards and accreditations.