Mozambican companies and institutions must invest more in cybersecurity to reduce the impact of cybercrime on their business, as well as the vulnerability that citizens are subject to with the increasing access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, including the Internet.

Cybercrime is becoming increasingly recurrent in public and private institutions. In addition to negatively impacting business, it leaves citizens more vulnerable.

Worldwide, in recent years, crimes using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), including the Internet, have grown considerably, according to Sérgio Martins, Associate Partner of the Technology Consulting area at Ernest & Young

"This is happening not only in Mozambique [which must take on hacker attacks as the new normal], but also in Portugal, the United States of America and all over the world," he said.

According to Martins, quoted by the newspaper Notícias, there are more and more attacks, so it is important that companies, individuals, and public institutions invest in order to make up for lost time in the maturity of their data security.

The newspaper says that to deal with these threats and their negative effects, the Mozambican government has adopted a set of instruments for the protection of businesses and citizens against crimes using ICTs. Among the instruments adopted include the new Criminal Code, Law No. 35/2014, enacted in December 2014, which covers computer crimes; Law 3/2017, on Electronic Transactions, which aims to protect consumers and regulate the use of electronic systems in government, private sector and civil society, among others.

The source interviewed by Notícias considered it to be an important step, since the State has a fundamental role in creating rules for the whole society to evolve in this cybersecurity theme, not only in raising awareness among companies and people, but also in punishing cybercrime.

"Currently cyber attacks are done in countries and jurisdictions where it is very easy to find impunity. We've had massive attacks that have come from North Korea, and there are some hackers based in Russia, for example. So even though the investigation sometimes manages to identificate the target of a particular attack, de- for you can't go after them because there are no agreements with those countries," he said.

He added that the issue of cybersecurity also has a relevant geopolitical component, because "we can apply the law at the national level, but we have to be aware that the Internet has no borders.

"The crimes come from all over the world and it is very difficult to contain them, especially when we talk about jurisdictions where there are no agreements, because it is not easy to ensure that the attackers are stopped," he stressed.