The Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), through its information communication technology and telecommunications group, has called on business organizations operating in Nigeria to embrace cybersecurity systems in order to ensure the safety of their business and customers, especially as cybercrime is becoming more prevalent and destructive in recent times.
Creating awareness on the importance of cybersecurity, the group held its annual symposium themed; ‘Cybersecurity: A Nigerian perspective’, in Lagos recently, where it focused on the increasing threats in the digital space and its costly impact on Nigerian businesses.
Speaking at the event, Babatunde Paul Ruwase, president, Lagos Chamber of Commerce & industry, said that the world is becoming more interconnected everyday, due to the accelerating rate of technological advancement hence the need for cybersecurity and protection against damage and attacks.
“Highly publicized breaches of supposedly secure systems, even those maintained by top companies, cast fear into the general population that their personal information could be exposed. This makes cybersecurity an increasingly prevalent topic. As stakeholders in this area, we must constantly collaborate to generate new strategies that can effectively overcome the latest cyber threats, Ruwase said.
According to him, the relevance and commonality of identity is increasing, and financial services providers, IT firms, mobile operators and other private entities are scrambling to find ways to stem the tide of this costly form of digital robbery.
He mentioned in his speech that the Importance of cybersecurity can never be over emphasized.
“One of the importance centers on privacy. Organisations must recognise that both their data and their client’s data are at risk. An article published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international non-profit digital rights group based in California, revealed some of the tactics that hackers use to access private digital information,” he said.
Acknowledging these threats, stakeholders agreed that organisations that store data, must properly secure their data network, or else, they may be placing their interests and client’s interest at risk.
“Cybersecurity threats could affect an entire country, economy or global infrastructure. For context, unidentified hackers waged a massive attack on top level domains in Turkey about four years ago, effectively shutting down access to any website. This event has exposed the world to a new reality, wherein a successful attack on an entire country’s internet infrastructure is feasible.
Therefore, this proves that cybersecurity is not only a necessity to protect the privacy data networks and infrastructural elements. It is our collective efforts to ensure cybersecurity in Nigeria keep up with blossoming technological applications and increasingly comprehensive data sharing,” Ruwase said.
More so during an interview, when asked about the increase in telecommunication tax, the LCCI president opined that the problem is accountability and poor management of funds.
He said, “It is good to raise taxes but then there must be accountability. There must be a framework on how it should be managed. With the increase of telecommunication tax, how are we sure that it will be applied in the form and for the purpose it is meant to meet.
Except we put our houses in order, we have had enough taxes and levies. Let’s start doing accountability, direct such funds for the purpose they are meant.”
