Information Network Security Agency

The Information Network Security Administration or INSA (የመረጃ መረብ ደህንነት አስተዳደር) is the national signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency of Ethiopia, founded when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was the ruling party of Ethiopia.

Creation
The Information Network Security Administration was founded during the EPRDF's period in power. The legal basis of creating INSA in 2006 was the Council of Ministers Regulation No.130/2006, with goals including defence of Ethiopian information infrastructure. Among the initial activities of INSA was spying on dissidents among the Ethiopian diaspora using "sophisticated intrusion and surveillance software", and to lay legal charges against journalists and opposition activists and politicians of "treason" and "terrorism".

In 2021, INSA shifted to new headquarters in a building constructed near Wello Sefer at a cost of 2.1 ETB billion. The new building is shared by the Ministry of Peace, Artificial Intelligence Center, and Financial Intelligence Center.

Legal changes
The Council of Ministers Regulation No.250/2011 and Proclamation No.808/2013 updated the initial legal definitions of INSA.

Leadership and structure
On 20 April 2018, Temesgen Tiruneh was appointed Director-General of INSA, who later become director of NISS. As of February 2021, the head of INSA was Shumete Gizaw. In 2024 Tigist Hamid became Director-General of INSA, replacing Solomon Soka.

In October 2018, responsibility for INSA was given to the Ministry of Peace. It was reverted back to the office of the prime minister in October 2021.

Cyberdefence
INSA stated in 2023 that during nine months, it had limited the damage from 4400 attempted and successful cyberattacks against Ethiopian institutions.

Surveillance
INSA plays a role in surveillance and internet censorship in close cooperation with Ethio telecom and other government agencies. , INSA had the technical ability to listen to live mobile phone calls, while Ethio telecom did not. In 2013, INSA employees had access to the email and other passwords of users of Woredanet (funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank), Schoolnet (funded by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme), and Agrinet.

Role in arrests of dissidents
In 2014, Human Rights Watch found that INSA played a significant role in police and security services' surveillance of Ethiopian citizens' private communications that led to the arbitrary detention of political dissidents.

Social networks
In 2021, INSA ran accounts promoting Ethiopian federal government points of view on Facebook. Facebook closed the accounts, describing them as "inauthentic". The Director of INSA described the accounts as covering "the reality in Ethiopia" and stated that INSA would develop an Ethiopian social media network.

2019 password incident
In 2019, INSA was the subject of notoriety when a crack revealed that more than half of a sample of 300 agents were using extremely simple passwords.