Bank of Ghana Opens SOC to Enable Threat Intelligence Sharing

A Financial Industry Command Security Operations Centre (FICSOC) has been opened by the Bank of Ghana.

Speaking at the official commissioning of the center, Bank of Ghana president Ernest Addison claimed the "project will help provide real-time visibility into cyber threats and attacks targeting the banking sector."

The bank and Ghana's Cyber Security Authority have worked together to improve the national cybersecurity posture in the banking sector in the country, Addison said — and during the conversations it became clear that the Bank of Ghana needed to establish a security information and event management (SIEM) system to send logs, alerts, aggregate information, and reports, and to enable threat intelligence sharing with other banks to improve their incident response mechanisms.

"Bank of Ghana was very much aware of the increased cybersecurity risks in the financial sector," Addison said. "This FICSOC project is a key component of the systems and we have to deal with the challenges of cybersecurity. This project will help provide real-time visibility into cyber threats and attacks targeting the banking sector."

The hope is that the facility will become one of the top national security facilities in the country and contribute to improving cybersecurity issues among financial sector institutions, according to Ghanaian Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, who officially opened the SOC in a ribbon-cutting event this week.

"The commissioning of this important edifice and infrastructure, which I understand is the first of its kind funded and owned by a Central Bank in Africa, is a remarkable feat by the Bank of Ghana," Bawumia told Ghana Today. "It is without a doubt that very soon, other central banks in the sub-region will visit the Bank of Ghana to understudy your approach to cybersecurity defense in the financial sector."