22nd June, 2020 Tonga’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Tonga) under the Ministry of MEIDECC is the first from the Pacific Islands region to become an Operational Member of the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) on April 2, 2020.

CEO for the Ministry of MEIDECC, Mr. Paula Pouvalu Ma’u said, this is a milestone for the Government and Tonga to partner with APCERT to further enhance CERT Tonga’s capacity and capability in delivering our intended outputs to organisations and the people of Tonga.

APCERT’s mission aims to maintain a trusted contact network of computer security experts in the Asia Pacific region to improve the region’s awareness and competency in relation to computer security incidents through:

• Jointly developing measures to deal with large-scale or regional network security incidents;
• Facilitating information sharing and technology exchange, including information security, computer virus and malicious code among its members;
• Promoting collaborative research and development on subjects of interest to its members;
• Assisting other Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) in the region to conduct efficient and effective computer emergency response;

Director for CERT Tonga, Mr. Siosaia Vaipuna said, “To become an Operational Member of APCERT, our application included fulfilling the requirements of an operational CERT. Our application was kindly sponsored by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) and this involved an on-site visit to assess our mandate, operations and processes which was completed in October 2019.”

CERT Tonga’s application becomes official upon approval by the Steering Committee of APCERT.

ENDS

Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change & Communications.