Cyber security concerns rises as Jonathan tenure nears end

There are rising concerns that the Nigerian economy, will remain vulnerable to the exploits of hackers prowling the digital landscape, if Goodluck Ebele Jonathan fails to sign the Cyber Crime bill into law before the end of his tenure in office next month. This is because the Cybercrime bill, which is expected to give teeth to the legislation against hackers recently passed by the Senate, is yet to be passed by the House of Representatives making the country to be vulnerable to hackers. The analysts are pessimistic of the passage of the all-important bill withing the next seven weeks given the preoccupation of the politicians and government to the remining elections. Also, to the effect that after its passage and harmonisation by the upper and lower legislative houses, the cybercrime bill would be sent to the President, who will assent to it before it becomes a law, a development analysts say might not be feasible.

Industry observers are of the view that if the bill is not signed into law by the President before the expiration of his tenure on May 29, 2015, the Cyber Crime Bill would have to start the process all over again. Ibrahim Shehu Gusau, chairman, house committee on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) had stated that the bill would be signed into law before a new government comes into power. “I am assuring Nigerians that before the end of this administration of Jonathan, both the Senate and House of Representatives must have harmonised the bill and ensure it is signed into law”, added Gusau.

Regulation, cost management and rising customer expectations for better service delivery, is however compelling banks, telecommunications operators, oil and gas organisations to migrate services and critical data online.

With Nigeria pushing for wider national broadband coverage, the country is more than ever exposed to the exploits of cybercriminals prowling the online space. For instance, about 1,461 cases of electronic fraud were reported in 2014 as against 822 of 2013, says the Nigerian Inter Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS) Plc. The bill spells out purnishment for e-crimes which were hitherto not deemed as offences. Insider sources are optimistic that both houses would soon meet to harmonise the bill, stressing that given the fastest nature of the bill and its importance to national development, the legislature will complete their own side of the bill for eventual assent by the president. NIBSS, in its “2014 ePayment Fraud Landscape in Nigeria,” said Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) were the major victims of fraudulent activities in terms of volume as it experienced the highest number of fraudulent transactions.

It however, said that Internet banking actually accounted for a loss of about N3.2 billion to fraudulent transactions in terms of value. “As for 2013, there were quite substantial amount fraudulent transactions in terms of volume on Internet banking and Web based transactions. Also, Across the Counter accounted for almost N16 billion of the attempted fraud, which is the bulk of fraud witnessed in 2013”, the document further disclosed. According to NIBSS, electronic platforms such as Internet Banking had 287 volume of fraud for 2014; ecommerce 114; Point of Sales 166; Web 218; ATM 491, Mobile 21. The document also explained that from the 1,461 cases, the value of attempted fraud reported was N7, 750, 152, 748, while the actual loss was N6, 215, 987, 323 in 2014 compared to N19, 148, 787, 069 attempts and N485, 194, 350 actual loss value reported in 2013.

The figures depict that more fraud occurred in 2014 and more loss was recorded in terms of value compared to the attempted fraud value”, the document stated. David Isiavwe, president of Information Security Society of Africa, Nigeria (ISSAN) is however of the view that the federal government has limited time to sign the bill into law.  “We need this cybercrime bill to be signed into law before the present crop of lawmakers complete their tenure.

 “Now that the Senate has passed the bill, it will be good if the House of Representatives follow suit, to enable President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan sign it into law before the next general elections”, Isiavwe further added. According to ISSAN president, the implications is that if the cybercrime bill is not signed into law before the next administration takes the reins of power, the entire legislative process will be repeated from scratch.

This will not bode well for the nations’ socio-economic development. Bisi Shonubi, managing director, NIBSS, noted that as 2015 continues to unfold, the Nigerian financial industry had gone a step ahead to introduce an industry-wide, central anti-fraud solution, to further combat the fraud rates which have been ever growing. “Going forward, we might also witness a rise in the prosecution of cyber- related crimes and more accountability on senior level executive of institutions when security breaches occur”, according to NIBBS.