THE Fiji National University (FNU) has taken a significant step in mitigating cyber risks following the establishment of a new Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) to monitor and handle cybersecurity incidents within the FNU network.
The team consists of 10 Information Technology (IT) professionals who will assist staff and students with their devices.
The specialised IT team will also provide consultation and assistance to other stakeholders as and when required.
The FNU CSIRT was introduced during the cybersecurity awareness workshop in Suva last week.
FNU Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Healey said it was important to ensure risks were mitigated.
Prof Healey said cybersecurity was becoming a bigger problem than physical crimes in most developed countries.
“The speed at which digital technologies keeps increasing, and at the same time, the cyber risk seems to evolve even faster,” he said.
He added digital transformation was rapidly taking place at the university and in the country.
“Before we got 4G in 2016, people were using Nokia phones to dial each other, and suddenly everyone has a smartphone. This transformation took place in just a blink of an eye.
“At FNU, we were running a slow network that has moved very quickly. The first stage was connecting the university to the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet) that connects universities in Australia. The connection took place in 2018.
“Through our high-quality broadband, we were able to transform our libraries into learning commons. Our students have resources available to the same way that anyone has in London, New York or Paris.
“We have a $20million project underway to install banner which is called University Information Management System (UIMS), a system that will move everything online including finance, HR, student registry functions and graduation will all be self-service through online. This project will finish by the middle of next year that will replace a huge amount of manual processes.”
