The Centre pour la cybersécurité Belgique (CCB – Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium) on Monday launched an online reference guide for businesses and organizations. Two-thirds of businesses and organizations in Belgium were affected by cybercrime in 2016 and 9% fell victim to scams and blackmail on the Internet, losing up to 10,000 euros in some cases.
In October last, the CCB and the Cyber Security Coalition launched an awareness campaign on phishing, a technique that enables scammers to collect the personal data and bank codes of clients on the Internet. The campaign reached two million Internet users and more than 130,000 persons visited the safeonweb.be Internet site. Since then, the Centre has received more than 150,000 suspicious email messages via its suspect@safeonweb.be site, an average of 600 to 700 per day. This allows it to block three to four new phshing sites per day.
Following up on this success, the CCB is now launching an online reference guide for businesses and organizations, which are “increasingly dependent on Internet technology, thus becoming more vulnerable to cybercrime”. The guide contains 150 measures to implement to strengthen one’s capacity to resist cyberattacks.
"In this way, we want to be sure that Belgium will become one of the least vulnerable countries in Europe,” stressed CCB Director Miguel De Bruycker.
For his part, Prime Minister Charles Michel said he was “convinced” that this problem had become “a crucial challenge” and a danger to democracy. “Look at the investigations in the United States, France and the United Kingdom,” he said. “Without preventive measures, it could have an impact on democratic choices. Cybersecurity is therefore very important.”
The Brussels Times
