Muscat: Oman witnessed over 430,00 attempted cybersecurity attacks in 2018, according to the Sultanate's Information and Technology Authority (ITA).

Over seventy government institutions met on Monday as part of the National Cybersecurity Drill to simulate cyber security threats and test Oman's ability to keep the country’s cyberspace safe.

A statement by the ITA read: "There were 432,978 attempted cyber attacks in Oman during 2018, more than 71,000 cyber attacks on Omani websites and 203 cases of malicious software in 2018."

Oman's Cybersecurity Emergency Readiness Team (OCERT) deals with thousands of the cybersecurity threats each year.

"OCERT has dealt with 1744 security threats in 2016, 1839 in 2017, and 2334 in 2018," the statement added.

"The 5th National Cybersecurity Exercises in Realistic Cyber Incidents Simulation was launched today with the participation of a number of experts and specialists from more than 70 government institutions and the infrastructure sector including: Banks, electricity, water, transport, logistics and oil and gas. Information technology represented by the National Center for Computer Security organised this event in the Kempinski Hotel in Muscat and it will be from 9 to 11 September under the title 'Dark Malware and the Internet’."

The objective of the exercise is to assess the level of emergency response teams (CERTs) in participating institutions and develop the capacities of national cadres and develop their skills in this aspect.

The idea of the exercise is based on a "realistic simulation of cyber incidents through the implementation of a number of scenarios to simulate the most influential threats and violations at the level of local and international information arena", according to the statement.

It will focus on a number of subjects, including: cryptocurrency mining with malware, phishing attacks, interactive protection simulation and the Internet

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