PM signals new efforts to improve Turkish cybersecurity

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

Efforts are underway to improve Turkey’s cybersecurity and precautions will be implemented in the public sector, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırm said. 

Speaking at an annual Informatics Summit in Istanbul, Yıldırım said the government was giving importance to internet security and was undertaking regulations to improve conditions of the issue.

“Legal regulations concerning cybersecurity have been taken. Important works to monitor cybersecurity are continuing. The action plan is intact. Workshops are being conducted. Exercises are also being carried out. Endurance tests on cyberattacks are being done. We will take crucial precautions on cyber-deterrence,” Yıldırm said as he introduced a new project to maintain cybersecurity in the public sector. 

Speaking about the government’s “Kamunet” project, Yıldırım said the plan was to provide information technologies in the public sector on a special web and thus ensure the transmission of information in public communication was being conducted securely.

Yıldırım also said the government had prepared an “incentive package” to encourage information companies to establish data centers that would contribute to information security. 

“These kinds of centers will contribute and provide data traffic to all regions in our country. It will be a medium for information produced here or transferred through here, to remain here,” Yıldırım said.  

Yıldırım has also signaled that the government was working on introducing regulations that would ease taxes on information companies operating in Turkey.