Fragility of Cyberspace in Liberia: Instituting Legislative and Technological Interventions (LTI)

The Internet Penetration on the Rise in Liberia:

A few years ago, it was widely and internationally reported that the Liberian Internet system was entirely shut down by a 30-years old British hacker Mr. Daniel Kaye, whose case has recently been adjudicated by the United Kingdom's judicial system at Blackfriars Crown Court in London. the Varus that was used to jeopardize the Internet Providing System (IPS) in Liberia is known as Mirai #14 botnet, which is considered one of the dangerous distributed denial of service (DDoS) botnet that cause Internet to sustain serious shutdown at a large scale. Therefore, Mr Daniel Kaye has been sentenced under the UK's Computer Misuse Act of 1990 to three years in jail because of his hacking activities on Liberia's Internet infrastructures in 2016 that caused millions of dollars in damages on businesses and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) mainly Lonestar Communication Incorporated (MTN).

Ironically, this event occurred, the local authorities did not know about it until it was headlined by international Information Technology sites and news outlets. This was due to lack of effective and sophisticated defense system of this newly engaged and highly saturated space with data, information and other valuable materials of the public sector, private enterprises and individuals in Liberia. Besides, the Internet penetration is on the exponential rise in the country as depicted in the below Chart (Figure 1), which shows the rise from 0% in 2000 to 8.6% in 2016 that is comparably higher than some of its neighboring countries such Sierra Leone (2.4%) and Guinea (1.8%) as for 2016[ii]. Thus, this calls for a need to protect the cyberspace through legislative and technological intervention against illegal intrusions; hacking the banks accounts, extra judicial accessing to the nation's critical IT infrastructures and causing financial and technical harms to businesses.

Figure 1

Source: Internet Live Stats (www.InternetLiveStats.com)

Recently, according to some reports, there were 1.80 million internet users in Liberia at the start of 2023, when internet penetration stood at 33.6 percent. Liberia was home to 642.1 thousand social media users in January 2023, equating to 12.0 percent of the total population. A total of 4.20 million cellular mobile connections were active in Liberia in early 2023, with this figure equivalent to 78.4 percent of the total population[iii].

Global Movement of Stringent Legislation of Cybersphere:

The seriousness and danger of the illegal intrusion of Cyberspace and computer misuse have persuaded many countries around the World to revisit their traditional laws and legislative and legal instruments in order to harmonize them with the threat and opportunities carried by Cyberspace. For instance, Singapore, Malaysia, USA, UK, South Korea Saudi Arabia and Estonia are some leading jurisdictions in this movement. It is, therefore, imperative to note that this movement is not only for the high- tech countries as it may be claimed/ presumed by some average-minded-people. Nonetheless, it is for every nation due to highly connectedness, cyber-globalization, and smallness of our World because of technology and heavily usage of smart instruments and IT-connected activities; phones, personal computers and e-banking, e-commerce, to state but a few.

I and many concerned-IT guys have been calling on the government through publications and policy dialogue-; and advocating for further regulation of Cyberspace in Liberia since 2016 internationally acclaimed hacking happened. However, some of those who have to really push the button told me in a policy dialogue on this issue that Liberia is not an high-tech country hinting that there is less need for rigorous regulation of the visual and Cybersphere . That means Cyber security law isn't matter of concern. Now, the UK judiciary had jailed his own citizen for extra judicially tempering our cyber security in Liberia. The point here is, we need a proper and effective cyber security law as a further deterrent measure for both internal and external intrusions into our Cyberspace. This move had been taken by most of our neighboring and African nations such as Ghana ( Data Protection Act 2012, Economic and Organized Crimes Act, 2010) ,Nigeria ( Cybercrime Act, 2015) Kenyan ( The Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act of 2018), Uganda, ( Computer Misuse Act of 2011) and South Africa has prepared its Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill but it yet to be passed into the law.

Technical and Financial Impacts of Kaye's Hacking Action in Liberia:

According to Dominic Casciani, BBC Home Affairs Correspondent,[iv] Mr. Kaye's attack on Lonestar Communication Incorporated (MTN), one of the Liberian largest ISPs caused the company serious damages in its revenues. “In the years preceding the DDOS attacks, Lonestar's annual revenue exceeded $80m (£62.4m). Since the attacks, revenue has decreased by tens of millions and its current liabilities have increased by tens of millions.” Furthermore, former Chief Executive Officer of Lonestar Babatunde Osho, said describing the magnitude of Kaye's criminality and hacking as 'devastating. Further, the action also denial thousands of Lonestar subscribers from calling one other during the period of the shutdown.

Technical and Policy Recommendations:

It is, therefore, recommended to the government of Liberia to firstly recognize the fragility of its cyberspace. Secondly, the fragility of the cybertsphere is not less important than the fragility of its real space because thousands of transactions that take place through the usage of the Internet. Thirdly, the authority has to emulate other advanced cyberlaw jurisdictions by legislating laws and designing and instituting policies as a further deterrent measures against any internal and external illegal intrusion into Liberia's cyberspace. It has to be noted that Telecommunication Act of 2007 was a great step and initiative; it has some provisions criminalizing certain behaviors and activities by computer misuse. Nevertheless, there is still a need to further deepen legislative and technical interventions, especially by legislating a comprehensive and wholistic cybercrime act. Fourthly, as the nation trains its real space law-enforcement officers, Liberia has to invest in technology to train a team to at least minimize the fragility of its cyberspace in general and personal data of private citizens in particular from being criminally accessed thus causing financial damages and other ramifications of insecurity of Cyberspace. All in all, these proposed measures need to be instituted by the Liberian government “Actions and measures, both technical and non-technical, with the express purpose of protecting computers, networks, software, data and other related digital technologies from all threat… Professional activity of implementing the above-mentioned actions and measures, including research, analysis and policy development”[v]

About the Author:
Dr. Mory Sumaworo,
BA (IU) MCL (IIUM), Cert-in PFM Law (LIPA) Ph.D. (IIUM)

Lecturer @ Cuttington University Graduate School of Global Affairs and Policy and A.M.E University Graduate School of Foreign Service Leadership.

Executive Director of African Institute for Development Research.

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

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