The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announces that its Computing Incident Response Team for the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT) has become a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation – Computer Emergency Response Teams (OIC-CERT). This reflects Egypt's leading role in this dynamic field. The membership is another evidence of the CBE's successful strategy to build an integrated framework to strengthen cybersecurity in the financial and banking sectors. It also shows EG-FinCIRT's efforts to adopt and comply with international cybersecurity standards and policies, and to ensure their full implementation. Sherif Hazem, CBE's Sub-Governor for the Cybersecurity Sector, said: "The CBE's membership in OIC-CERT reflects its keenness to continuously build capacities and leverage the regional and international expertise in the cybersecurity arena, highlighting the unprecedented developments achieved by Egypt in this field." Ibrahim Mostafa, Assistant Sub-Governor of the CBE and Director of EG-FinCIRT, said: "This milestone is another significant addition to the efforts of EG-FinCIRT to keep up with the continuous developments in the field of cybersecurity. It also helps to enhance the ability of the Egyptian financial sector institutions to withstand and mitigate cyber threats, as well as to raise cybersecurity awareness and foster cooperation in research and innovation." The CBE's membership in OIC-CERT aligns with its strategy, which aims to promote cooperation and integration, exchange knowledge and expertise, develop cooperative initiatives, and enable partnerships among member states in the cybersecurity field. The CBE's strategy also aims to enhance the participation of EG-FinCIRT in implementing the National Cybersecurity Strategy efficiently and effectively, and to support building the technical capacities of state entities to respond and coordinate the mitigation of cybersecurity attacks. EG-FinCIRT obtained the accreditation and membership in the Global Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) in May 2023, after meeting all the technical and organizational requirements, becoming Egypt's first sectoral cybersecurity incident response team internationally recognized by FIRST.
