Octopus Cybercrime Community

Libya has not yet adopted a cybercrime strategy.

By a decree signed in 2013 by the Ministerial Council of the State of Libya it was established the National Information Security and Safety Authority (NISSA), whose mission statement is to promote and sustain secure use of ICTs as well as prevent, detect and respond effectively to the associated risks.

NISSA has released the NISSA Policy Manual that includes: Data Protection Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, User Policies, Anti-Virus Policy, Network Security Policies, Third Party Policy, Data Backup Policy, and Physical Security Policy.

Libya doesn’t have a cybersecurity strategy, however NISSA is mandated and currently developing a national cyber security strategy, which will be implemented together with the Ministry of Communications and Informatics.

According to an ITU country report, Libya maintains a division especially tasked to investigate cybercrimes, called the Anti-IT Crimes Administration, which falls under the administration of the Ministry of Interior.

The National Incident Response Team, Libya-CERT (Libyan Computer Emergency Response Team) is hosted under NISSA. It was established with the support of ITU and has national-level responsibilities and is responsible with prevention, detection and mitigation of cyber threats.

Libya doesn’t have any certified government and public sector agencies under internationally recognized standards in cybersecurity.

The Libyan government has an established national cyber security awareness raising campaign run by NISSA and in collaboration with a number of private ITC sector companies. Currently, the awareness campaign targets the ITC sector, but every available effort is being made to reach out to a wider audience. The Libyan government also works with NGOs to help educate and raise awareness about known cyber risks. At the moment, most of the academic institutions have mandatory classes of various information security related subjects in all IT related degrees. While the Government of Libya has not yet established cyber security education centers, NISSA is currently working with Tripoli University on introducing a new degree dedicated solely to cyber security.