African Cybersecurity Forum 2026: Maroc Telecom sets out its cloud security governance model On day one of the African Cybersecurity Forum 2026 in Rabat, the CISO of Maroc Telecom argued for unified cloud governance built on a single security baseline, strict access control and continuous oversight of providers. On the first day of the African Cybersecurity Forum 2026, on 12 October 2026 in Rabat, Mehdi Benamar, chief information security officer-cybersecurity at Maroc Telecom, set out the operator's vision for securing cloud migrations, with an emphasis on governance, access control and provider supervision. The speech took place in a panel dedicated to cloud-driven digitalisation, opening a forum held from 12 to 14 October 2026 in the Moroccan capital. The forum is part of Morocco CyberSecurity Week 2026, structured into three thematic days focused on national strategies, governance and the link between cybersecurity and the economy. The agenda notably provides for a first day on national strategies and governance, a second centred on the African Cybersecurity Forum itself, and a third devoted to the nexus between cybersecurity and economic models, alongside a technical track for CIRT/CERT teams. In the context of rapid cloud adoption in critical sectors, Mehdi Benamar advocated group-wide common governance built around a single cloud security baseline applied across all Maroc Telecom subsidiaries and environments to ensure a consistent level of requirements. This governance starts with the systematic classification of workloads before any migration, with workloads qualified upstream to arbitrate between on‑premise deployment, sovereign cloud or public cloud and to calibrate the associated controls. The executive also stressed the need to distinguish between controls that must remain internally managed – identity and access management, encryption keys, security monitoring – and outsourced activities, for which the operator aims to maintain continuous visibility over service providers' operations. Cloud governance steered by security indicators To anchor these choices in management decision‑making, Mehdi Benamar highlighted KPI‑driven governance, with regular sharing of cybersecurity indicators with top management so that investment decisions are tied to the organisation's actual security posture. Among the indicators tracked are the rate of critical workloads that are compliant and supervised, and the detection and remediation times for incidents, combining measurement of sensitive‑asset coverage with operational response capability. Control over critical suppliers and the results of resilience tests complete this dashboard, documenting both dependency on providers and the robustness of architectures against crisis scenarios. Beyond the Moroccan operator's case, these priorities reflect a broader move among African telcos – now providers of cloud and cybersecurity services – to structure governance around unified frameworks and board‑level indicators. Recent sector analyses underline the central role of African telecom operators in securing digital services, including the protection of cloud environments. Maroc Telecom's "Sovereign Cloud" offer showcased in Rabat Alongside the panel, Maroc Telecom presented its "Sovereign Cloud" offer aimed at companies and institutions wishing to host their digital resources in Morocco, highlighting control over hosting, data localisation and protection of information systems. The solution is built on a Tier III‑certified data centre, presented as a secure environment for critical applications and a lever to address clients' expectations in terms of digital sovereignty. Maroc Telecom's participation in the forum is part of a broader strategy to promote its managed cybersecurity, sovereign cloud and critical connectivity services, with the group positioning itself as a trusted partner for infrastructure operators and large corporates. The forum's agenda also includes specific sessions on cloud‑driven digitalisation, management of hybrid and multicloud environments and the shared‑responsibility model between clients and providers, giving Maroc Telecom a platform to explain its governance doctrine and test its messaging with regulators, large customers and international experts. Cloud governance at the centre of discussions through 14 October According to the published programme for Morocco CyberSecurity Week 2026, the African Cybersecurity Forum segment is scheduled to run until 14 October 2026, with panels on national priorities, protection of critical infrastructure and the structuring of cybersecurity services markets. In parallel, a technical track organised with the International Telecommunication Union on 13 and 14 October provides for malware analysis exercises and cyber incident response. African infrastructure: billions still needed to close the funding gap Alamein Africa Forum: Cairo positions itself as a capital hub to transform the continent