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Ethiopia is going to adopt a Cyberlaw that helps protect financial institutions from crimes through internet networks.

The draft law sent to some banks and insurance companies for comment aims to introduce a cyber law which would make electric records legally accepted. This law does not exist in Ethiopia. The law would give penalties, making it a criminal offense to hack networks and systems of banks and insurance companies.

According to some bankers the law would protect the country’s financial institutions from being cheated through the internet, networks and smart cards. These bankers said that the system is so volatile due to the absence of such law that it has the potential to highly affect financial institutions.

According to these experts the draft law is expected to be ratified by next year after the Council of Ministers approves the law.

The last couple of years have seen an alarming rate of cyber theft in the country. Financial experts insist that the law should be ratified soon to prevent financial institutions from collapsing.

One veteran banker said that in the developed world hackers could interrupt a bank’s transaction for hours.

The west has sophisticated systems to prevent these kinds of attacks.

“But imagine the havoc that a hacker with that capacity could create in an Ethiopian Bank ,and yet, there is an escape in the law for such cases,” the banker exclaimed.

The Criminal Code of Ethiopia that was adopted some 60 years ago states that courts would only accept signed papers and agreements as evidence. However, the information technology revolution has changed the way business is transacted, governments are operating, and national defense is conducted currently.

According to a study paper presented by Balcha Reba, Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency Standards and Inspection Department Head, entitled ‘State of Cyber Security in Ethiopia’, these three functions now depend on an interdependent network of critical information infrastructures known as cyberspace. The paper further stressed that, to secure this cyberspace a national policy needs to be created to minimize disruptions of critical information and infrastructure. The paper argues that this must be done to protect the economy, services and national security. The paper notes cyber security needs to be given prime attention.

In 2001, a national taskforce coordinated by the National Computer and Information Center of the Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission, initiated Data Disaster Prevention and Recovery Management (DDPRM). This was a program created to protect data stored, processed and transmitted through computer systems.

With regard to this, the Data Disaster Prevention and Recovery Management guideline was developed by a taskforce organized by the Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission, with the goal of adopting strategies to determine the level of protection required for applications, systems, and facilities in ICT development. By creating this it is hoped the country will be able to recover from any disaster without serious business discontinuity and major loss to systems and data.

The report suggests changing specific data security issues to a more generalized information security system.

According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia: ‘Cyber law is a term that encapsulates the legal issues related to use of communicative, transactional, and distributive aspects of networked information devices and technologies. It is less a distinct field of law in the way that property or contract are, as it is a domain covering many areas of law and regulation’. [capital]