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Year in Review 2025

Digital Financial Services (DFS) Security Clinics - Sierra Leone

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The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was pleased to invite participants to the Digital Financial Services (DFS) Security Clinic, Sierra Leone, which took place on 27–28 November 2025, from 10:00 to 13:00 GMT, online via Zoom. The Security Clinic provided in-depth sessions on the ITU DFS Security Recommendations and the ITU DFS Security Lab activities.

The clinic aimed to explain in detail the ITU DFS Security Recommendations, highlighting their relevance and applicability for DFS and telecom regulators and operators in enhancing the security and resilience of their operations. The expected output of the clinic is a draft document for the adoption of the relevant ITU DFS Security Recommendations by the National Communications Authority (NatCA) – Sierra Leone.

Target Audience: The DFS Security Clinic was targeted at representatives from the telecommunications regulator, the central bank, national cybersecurity agencies, mobile network operators, and mobile money providers



PROGRAMME

Day 1, 27 November 2025 (GMT)

​​​​10:00 - 10​:10​
​​​Welcome Remarks​
  • NatCA
  • ITU​
10:10 - 11:10​
​Introduction to ITU DFS Security Lab and Knowledge Sharing Platform 
This session will provide a general overview of the ITU DFS Security  Lab and the assistance that it provides to developing countries to adopt the DFS Security recommendations. This session will also introduce the ITU knowledge sharing platform. The ITU DFS Security Knowledge Sharing Platform is designed to foster collaboration among regulators and other stakeholders in the development and implementation of security guidelines and best practices for Digital Financial Services (DFS).​

Namrud Negash, Project Officer, ITU
11:00 - 11:20 
​Coffee Break 
​      11:20 - 13:00
​ITU DFS security recommendations
This session will present the security measures from the ITU DFS security recommendations to be adopted by DFS regulators and providers to secure the telecom infrastructure and payment system infrastructure.
The following recommendations will be presented:​
Namrud Negash, Project Officer, ITU​​


​Day 2, 28 November 2025 (GMT)

​​​​10:00 - 10:50
DFS application security best practices and DFS Application Security testing 
Following up on the ITU DFS security recommendations on Day 1, this session continues the elaboration of the security control measures to the application layer. As DFS cyber threats continue to evolve, protecting applications from vulnerabilities become paramount. The DFS application security best practices included in the ITU DFS security recommendations can be adopted by regulators to establish a minimum-security baseline for DFS providers to build in security at the design phase.

This session will explore the security tests that are conducted in the ITU DFS security lab to verify compliance of mobile payment apps against the Security best practices. 
Namrud Negash, Project Officer, ITU​​
10:50 - 11:00 
Coffee Break 
​11:00 - 11:30
DFS Security Assurance Framework and Audit guideline
This session discussed the DFS security assurance framework that can be implemented by DFS providers to better manage the risks and mitigate their impact.​
The following recommendations will be presented:​
Namrud Negash, Project Officer, ITU
11:30 - 13:00​​Open discussion: Adopting the ITU DFS security recommendations 
In this session ITU will present the results of the gap analysis survey on the DFS security recommendations and open the discussion to NatCA and the central bank to openly discuss the implementation of the relevant DFS security recommendations. The output of this session is a draft document for the adoption of the relevant recommendations by NatCA and the central bank.
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