A cyberattack is not just an IT problem, it is a test of national leadership
The recent cyberattack that disrupted one of Angola’s largest telecommunications operators should not be dismissed as an isolated technological failure. Nor should it be viewed merely as a corporate incident affecting a single company. It is a warning to every African nation that increasingly depends on digital infrastructure to run its economy, deliver public services and safeguard national security.
Paul T. Shipale (with inputs by Folito Nghitongovali Diawara Gaspar)
Angola’s wake up call
The recent cyberattack that disrupted one of Angola’s largest telecommunications operators should not be dismissed as an isolated technological failure. Nor should it be viewed merely as a corporate incident affecting a single company.
It is a warning to every African nation that increasingly depends on digital infrastructure to run its economy, deliver public services and safeguard national security.
For Namibia, the question is not whether such an attack could happen. The question is whether the country is prepared when it inevitably does.
History teaches us that nations are rarely judged by whether crises occur. They are judged by how well they anticipate them, prepare for them and recover from them. Cybersecurity is no exception.
Digital sovereignty the new frontier of national security
For generations, governments defined national security in terms of military strength, border protection and territorial integrity. Those remain essential pillars of statehood. Yet the twenty-first century has expanded the very meaning of sovereignty.
Today, digital infrastructure has become part of a nation’s strategic territory.
