Stakeholders seek joint action on cybercrime as Nigerians lose billions to attacks

Bonny Amadi

Stakeholders in the economy, particularly the capital market, have called for a combined effort at addressing challenges posed by the increasing threats posed by cybercrime to the nation’s economy.

The call was made at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE),in Lagos, on Tuesday, at the’ information security forum.

The forum revealed that the threat has assumed a more worrisome dimension, as small and medium scale enterprises, SMEs, hardly survive from cybercrime attacks; while bigger corporate concerns take longer timer to survive attacks.

It said that as a result, victims of such attacks have loss colossal amount of money in the process.

“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 NSE, Mr. Adeolu Bajomo.

He said that joint effort by stakeholders, disclosure when attacked and sustained approach on cyber security by the board and management of organizations, would help to arrest increasing challenge of cyber criminals.

Bajomo, in his presentation on cybercrime, said that the Nigerian capital market has remained aware of the role of information security in managing businesses in Nigeria; and is committed towards ensuring that businesses do not just survive attacks, but also equip business owners with the requisite knowledge to address them.

Mrs. Favour Femi-Oyewole, the NSE’s Global Certified Chief Information Security Officer, while 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.

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

Solutions Sales Manager at Microsoft, Microsoft Business Solution Lead at Microsoft, Mrs. Olatomiwa Williams, said that organizations 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,” he said.

Head, Cyber Risk services at Deloitte Nigeria, Tope Aladenusi said that many people usually think more about how to make money and not how to protect the money through protection of infrastructure 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 said that 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 occured.

He said that the maIn 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.