Cyber crimes: Taming new economic challenge

Small and mediums Scale Enterprises are facing challenges of supportive infrastructures, cyber crime has added to their woes, as most SMES fold because they have been hacked by cyber criminals.

A cyber-attack is any type of offensive maneuvers employed by nation-states, individuals, groups, or organizations that targets computer information systems, infrastructure, computer networks, and/or personal computer devices by various means of malicious acts.

The attack of cyber-attacks usually originating from an anonymous source that either steals, alters, or destroys a specified target by hacking into a susceptible system.

Cybercriminal attacks and how business owners and staff could guide against it, protect their data, was the core of the Nigerian Stock Exchange’s (NSE) capital market information security forum on Tuesday, October 31, which centered on preparing, budgeting and guiding against any form cyber-attack that will bring down accompany to its foundation.

Solutions Sales Manager at Microsoft, Microsoft Business Solution Lead at Microsoft, Mrs. Olatomiwa Williams, presenting insight on how organizations should be cyber resilient, said that firms need to guide against cyber criminals and be cyber resilient.

“Most customers are today on the digital network and to reach a wider team of customers, organizations need to be cyber resilient. “To be feared looking, you need to have digital resilient policy in your organization”

Head, Cyber Risk services at Deloitte Nigeria, Tope Aladenusi re-echoed that many people usually think more about how to make money and not how to protect the money through protection of infrastructures that supports the money making machinery.

He said that organizations should learn to balance risk, by working towards protecting their funds because “if you have not been hacked, it is matter of time for you or your company to be hacked, so you also need to prepare for it”

Ademola Alabi of AAA bits consulting warned that board members should not relent and that irrespective of mechanism put in place to guide against such, it should be continually tested and reviewed.

According to him, irrespective of the protective mechanism put in place, once an organization has been tipped for attack, the attack most take place, irrespective of the time is occurs.

He said that the man challenge is what to do when attack has been identified; hence security has changed from physical security to cyber security woven around technology and internet of things.

He said,“When the laptop of a CEO is stolen, the concern should not be on the cost of the computer, if it is encrypted, there will be no problem, but where it is not encrypted, then the entire business and data contained in the system would be compromised.”

According to him, it is not only for organizations to put cyber security in place, but to make sure that the system is continually tried and put to work , for efficiency when its services is really needed’

Mrs. Favour Femi-Oyewole, CISO, the NSE Global Certified Chief Information Security Officer, reinforcing cyber resilience, said that Knowledge is power and that cyber resilient organizations recognize that

Security needs to go beyond systems, software or IT departments to include raising the security the security IQ of all employees and improved organizational processes.

She said that Symantec proposes a new strategic partnership between the security function and business leaders, brings about balanced competitive advantage against the inescapable Cyber Risks of today, to become not Cyber Risk-free, but Cyber Resilient.

“ Implication is that SMEs are the most vulnerable, within six months, the hacked SMEs have gone under” said Executive Director, Market Operations and Technology, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Mr. Adeolu Bajomo, earlier in his presentation.

Bajomo said that the Nigerian capital market has remained aware of the role of information security in managing businesses in Nigeria; and there has committed towards ensuring that businesses not just survive attacks, but equip business owners with the requisite knowledge.

He said that hacking causes more problems that envisaged because most times the companies that have been hacked don’t know, and even them become aware, they tend to hind the information so that there won’t be a run on their company,

adding” the reality is that when you are hacked, to tell others so that they too will become aware, but the information you pass at that moment if not properly structured my mar your firm’s early recovery”

According to him, the need to safeguard information of individuals and corporate organizations, become imperative because of increasing threat to business sustainability and the multiplier effect of cybercrime, adding that some people have the notion “why work when you can steal the data anyway.”

He said that the trend of cybercrime in the country which is aligned to information technology development in the country, is a drift to the analogue era of doing businesses and market operations where crimes then were mainly driven by analogue.

According to him, there has been innovations and transformations in the ways of doing business in the country for the past 25 years,

and this has further brought with it the technological challenges and new modalities of crimes executed through the Internet, compromising corporate and individual data banks and making a kill of the firms’ fortunes.

The NSE’s Executive Director said that while there are good people working to enhance their fortunes through legitimate means, others are also doing their evil works to break into the works of others, get their date and steal their vital information to negatively impact the company.

Digital revolution, he said, influenced four billion of the eightbillion world population to be hooked on the Internet, 10 per cent of the 94 per cent employees online, while 2 million petabyte of internet expected to be trafficked by 2019.

The global high ranking of Internet wealth he said is value at $4.2 billion in group 20 economies has triggered remarkable increase in incidences of cybercrime of which 1.4 per cent attacks are focused on organist ions weekly, through 1.85 million new malware samples, among others.

“Big criminals will attacks big firms to make a big kill, while small criminals he, said must go for high stakes or small stakes in multiple rounds, they will test your defense and see if they will break into your systems”

He said that companies need to imbibe proactive measure to guide against Internet attacks that will ground their operations, and force them out of business.

General Manager, Union Bank Plc, Mr. David Isiavwe, in remark, said that banks and other financial institutions have ended the era of not disclosing when they are hacked, hence the practice is guiding against cybercrimes in banks.

“The cycle of silence when banks are attacked, is long over. I think that paradigm is changing for the past 10 years as it is being confronted by information security system in Africa,” he said, “ as the attack is going on,

it is being shared and reported on the social media, we continue to collaborate, in the face of cybercrime, there is no competition.”

He said that it is expected that there would be more attracts on the Internet of things (IOT) and this requires that only safe IOTs are deployed in Nigeria, Isiavwe counseled.

Anthony Okoro, a stock broker, said that the latest challenge playing gradually underneath is the block chain technology and crypto currency.

He said, “People are stealing money from government and blocked it with private key; and we are no encouraged to vie into crypto currency” he added, “ If our money is hacked and blocked into block chain or crypto currency, what are we doing to reverse it?”

Bonny Amadi