Eswatini National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) 2025  The current status of cybersecurity in Eswatini, including both current and emerging cyber threats facing the country;  The national cybersecurity strategy vision and the strategic goals, which will support the achievement of the vision;  Principles that will underpin the implementation of this Strategy;  Roles and responsibilities of relevant stakeholders;  The implementation and monitoring of this strategy. 1.2 Strategy Context The Kingdom of Eswatini is currently experiencing significant changes in its ICT sector. This is evident with the establishment of an independent telecommunications regulator— Eswatini Communications Commission (ESCCOM) in 2013; the on-going liberalisation of the sector with the issuance of a licence to a third national mobile operator in 2016; and the pending unbundling of EPTC’s telecommunications infrastructure and services as an operator. These efforts have started to have an impact on the ICT sector for Eswatini, resulting in improvements in the access and quality of ICT services through 3G and 4G mobile broadband services, which were recently introduced in Eswatini. With a population of about 1.15 million people, a mobile penetration rate of over 98%, with nearly 849,121 mobile broadband users and about 24,572 fixed broadband users; the scale of ICT adoption and the resulting impacts are increasingly noticeable across the Kingdom of Eswatini. This is a key motivation for the Kingdom of Eswatini to continue to leverage its legal and regulatory framework to promote the growth of ICTs and digitisation of its society and economy in a secure environment. The current global trends show that the increasing digitisation of Eswatini will result in increased dependency of Eswatini’s economy and society on ICT. Increased dependency on ICT also in turn provides opportunities for cyber threat actors to attempt to attack or illegally access and damage data, information systems and networks in Eswatini. Given that the Cyberspace is borderless, criminals continue to increase their capacities and activities to attack countries across the world, including Eswatini. In the following sub-section, the strategy provides an overview of some of the known vulnerabilities and threats facing Eswatini today. 1.2.1 Threats 1.2.1.1 Cybercriminals Cybercrime continues to be a pervasive threat to nations across the world, including Eswatini. Cybercriminals continue to target economic prosperity of individuals, institutions and nations, Eswatini National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCS) 2025 6