First Bank educates businesses, customers on cyber-fraud

First Bank of Nigeria on Thursday, educated businesses and its customers on how to escape the upsurge of cyberspace fraud associated with the last quarter of the year known as the “ember months”.

Harrison Nnaji, Chief Information Security Officer of FirstBank, at an information and cyber security quarterly webinar organised by the bank, said there was usually an upsurge of cybercrimes during the ember months.

Nnaji explained various tricks hackers adopt and measures to protect the public from losing their funds to cybercriminals.

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The webinar had the theme: “Social Media Savvy: Protecting Yourself from Online Fraud”

Nnaji said that social media had become different things to different people, adding that, it was a wealth creation opportunity for some and tears for victims of fraud.

He explained the concept of cyber security and online fraud; common types of online fraud on social media, steps to adopt when an account is breached and the best safety methods on social media.

He warned against too much information sharing on social media and having too many platforms, saying two or three social media handles should be enough.

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He added that some people get involved with too many social media platforms that some times they forget where they had deposited their personal information.

Nnaji warned against freebies which usually lured victims, adding that scams will continue until people take measures to guide against hacks.

“Let’s be careful what we do online,” he said.

He said that the cost of recovery of loses was usually as huge as the cost of the funds lost, leading to several people ignoring legal or other actions against the cybercriminals.

According to him, AI has made it worse and we need to be more careful than in the past.

“Get the right knowledge, practice what we preach here.

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“If you do 10 per cent of what you have heard today, there are chances that you will go through this season without a single loss to cybercriminals,” he said.

He advised customers to approach the bank directly when confronted with issues or situations they were not comfortable with.

He renewed appeals to participants to become ambassadors who would utilise the information from the webinar and pass the knowledge to their communities.

The Guest Speaker, Ifeoma Okoh, listed common scams including investment scams, dating, jobs, prize and lottery, account takeover, clickjacking, phishing, and social engineering, among others.

Okoh who is the Manager and Data Protection Officer, Information Security and Governance, Risk and Control, Advisory Digital Encode Ltd also explained how cyber thieves move with new technologies.

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She urged the public always to validate links to clarify that they were not phishing or email scams while reeling out other measures including two-factor authentication across all social media handles.

She urged Nigeria to be wary of urgent requests, and called for timely and regular updates of devices; education to update knowledge and constant monitoring of accounts across social media handles.

Mr Emmanuel Okoroji, Head, Threat Intelligence and Risk Management, FirstBank, also shared insights on firewalls which could serve as a buffer against attacks.