Doha

The third National Cyber Security Drill "Star-3" will be held this month to measure the level of readiness of various sectors in Qatar to fight evolving cyber threats.
The event will gather organisations from the sectors of energy, finance, government, telecommunications, healthcare, education, sports and transportation, in addition to ICT providers and academia.
Organised by the Qatar Computer Emergency Response Team (Q-CERT) at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ictQatar), in collaboration with Qatar University (QU), "Star-3" will also be witnessed by a number of QU students.
Speaking at a press conference last week, Engineer Khalid al-Hashmi, Assistant Undersecretary of Cyber Security Sector, ictQATAR, said the goal of developing and cultivating national cyber security capabilities explain why QU students are invited to the four-day event.
"The drill is not a competition, not an audit. There is no pass or fail. It is for organisations to test their processes and learn from their peers," he stressed. "There will not be any kind of ranking or benchmarking of any kind among the participating organisations."
Every year, Q-CERT conducts the drill in a different format for different purposes. Al-Hashmi noted that Star-1 tested the incident response and reporting capabilities and Star-2 tested cross-sector communication in times of crisis.
This year's Star-3 will be sector specific, focusing on building defense strategies with the objective of creating an opportunity for participant organisations to test and improve their internal procedures, understand cyber security holistically and assess sectorial maturity.
"Cyber drills are co-ordinated in line with the second objective of the National Cyber Security Strategy: respond to, resolve and recover from cyber incidents and attacks through timely information sharing, collaboration and action," he added.
Dr Sumaya al-Maadeed, head of Computer Science and Engineering Department, College of Engineering at QU echoed the statement of al-Hashmi saying the initiative fulfills the fourth objective of the National Cyber Security Strategy: develop and cultivate national cyber security capabilities.
"I am sure this is a mutual objective for QU and ictQATAR, given the fact that QU is a major provider of graduates in the field of information science and engineering to the local market," she said.
The number of attendees has increased 200% since the first cyber drill. The overall expected number of participants is more than 300 from 46 organisations.
Ahead of Star-3, Q-CERT invited participating sectors to a half-day workshop on business crisis and continuity management, aiming to bring all participants up to speed on the cyber security concepts that need to be applied at the drill.