The Naija Cyber Security Conference 2017 (NaijaSecCon), held recently in Lagos, brought together Information Technology (IT) and cyber security experts to discuss and proffer possible solutions to the increasing menace constituted through online channels.
Cyber security concerns are on the rise as online attacks causing serious damage to organisations and people are steadily increasing.A recent cybersecurity report released by Cisco showed that email spams have reached the highest levels since 2010 and a report by Russian based cyber security firm Kaspersky has revealed that there is a critical need for enhanced cyber security as global spam volume is seen to be rising rapidly, often spread by large, thriving botnets and Nigerian financial institutions a susceptible to these attacks.
According to Rotimi Akinyele, a cyber security professional and the convener of Naija Cyber Security Conference, it is important to first create awareness on the importance of cyber security ignorer to successfully address the issues of cyber crime attacks.
“Everything we are doing has to do with bringing awareness. We have decided to offer knowledge and information to Nigerians and use this opportunity to identify cyber talents in the country by organising a competition where we will give N200, 000 to the winner as a way to encourage cyber security talents,” Akinyele said.
“People invest in cyber solution, buy fire-ware worth millions, but in the end people need to be aware because there are some basic things which people are not aware. We are starting with awareness, this is going to be a gradual things, it is not just going to be a one-off.
Yearly we will be organising this conference and it is going to be bigger. The interesting thing about the program is that people are willing support. They have the believe that what we are doing will change the future of cyber security in Nigeria,” he added.
Speaking to select journalists at the conference, Debra Okwuzi, Senior Cyber Security Specialist said; “The mentality about cyber security is that if there is no strong attack, people will not get serious. We have had regulatory bodies which made it compulsory for financial institutions abide by certain cyber security standards and regulatory framework. As long as the motive is right, the support will be heavily required.”
She said that there are internal cyber security issues such as terrorism which needs to be solved.
“Before talking about the global body, we need to talk about what happens internally. There has to be a lot of synergy on how to address cyber-crimes. Cyber-crime is growing exponentially, the issue has been in the media and this has attracted government attention to pass into a cyber-crime bill,” Okwuzi said.
On his part, Chinedu Onwukike, Senior Cybersecurity expert said that although a lot of agencies have been created to tackle cybercrime, nothing serious has been done.
“There are no forensic tests being carried out, people get away with fraud.There has to be collaboration in intelligence sharing by financial institutions to tackle cyber-crimes; this is the practice in advanced societies,” Onwukike said.
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