AT 15th int’l conference on cryptology: Researchers share knowledge on advancements in data, communication security.

The conference which rumbled off on Wednesday, July 10, will wrap up today Friday July 12. 

It has brought together some 40 researchers from Cameroon, Switzerland, France, United Arab Emirates, UAE, amongst others. 

Commonly known as "Africacrypt", the gathering is an annual international conference on the "theory and applications of cryptology"

Over the years, "Africacrypt" has gained a reputation as a major scientific event that seeks to advance and promote the field of cryptology on the African continent.

The conference has systematically drawn some excellent contributions to the field, and has seen many renowned researchers delivered keynote presentations. 

That underway in Douala had as major partner, the University of Bamenda and the National Agency of Information and Communication Technologies, ANTIC. 

Enter ANTIC boss

In his opening remarks, the Director General of ANTIC, Prof Ebot Ebot Enaw, expressed sincere thanks to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Bamenda, Professor Theresia Nkuo Akenji, and all her team members, who have spared no effort to ensure the success of the event.

He the emergence of ICTs in recent years as key enablers of socio-economic growth, thanks to their cross-cutting nature and ability to optimize processes, have transformed all sectors of economy and society, including businesses via e-commerce, health through e-health, education via e-learning and public service delivery through e-government. 

He said the trend towards the digital transformation of the society has led to the generation of a huge volume of data which, according to some experts, is the new oil of our era and the driver of a new revolution dubbed the fourth industrial revolution.

He, however, noted that this renewed interest in data has led to the emergence of new threats known as cybercrimes, whose damage on a global scale needs not to be overemphasized   

The average cost of a data breach in 2023, he detailed, was $4.45 million, an increase of 15% in 3 years, according to Sapians, Cybersecurity Investment Opportunities & Solutions. 

In 2022, according to a Stormshield survey, global financial losses due to cybercrime reached 6,904 billion dollars.

"As you all know, data security is based on three essential services; confidentiality, integrity and availability. Of these services, cryptology is involved in the first two, namely confidentiality which is based on symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption algorithms and integrity based on hashing algorithms," the ANTIC boss said.  

Cryptology which is a science of protecting messages or secrets between two persons, it was said, can be subdivided into two major areas.

This includes cryptography, which focuses on the design of algorithms and methods for performing cryptographic functions and cryptanalysis, which studies the structure of encryption algorithms to understand how they work and identify potential failures that could lead to messages being recovered in clear text.

"Take for example, WhatsApp communications are secured end-to-end thanks to cryptology. One is the process of encrypting data, rendering it unintelligible so that even if someone intercepts the data, he won't be able to make use of it. This prevents unauthorised access to data. Cryptanalysis on the other hand, takes to analyse the algorithms used in encrypting the data to find, faults, loop holes acting in a bit to decrypt data and gain access to it,” Prof Ebot Ebot Enaw expounded. 

Call for federated actions 

He went on to defend the interest of ANTIC in matters of cryptology, noting that Cryptology is at the heart of cyber security 

"…because without it, we can't even talk about cyber security. It our interest as the national agency to support this initiative so we all gain insight into how to best secure our cyber space,” he stated.

The ANTIC boss added that: “Cyber security is inclusive, participatory and requires that we bring together all stakeholders. Researchers do their job and we use their findings to develop services that can help us address our problems. This will help develop tailored solutions to our own problems So, researchers from all over Africa, have come together to exchange ideas, best practices on the way forward on cryptology which is gaining strength in our continent and the world”.