‘60% of Nigerian firms suffer cyber attacks’

Participants at the second edition of NaijaSecCon have been exposed to insights and discussions around malware analyses; cryptocurrency mining, USB forensics, digital forensics capabilities, programming and different topics around security.

Speakers at the conference held in Lagos at the weekend, are of the view that lack of education on technical aspects of Information Security could hurt the economy in the nearest future.

Their unanimous views stem from the report, which projects that the devastating effect of cyber-crime will cost about $6trillion by 2021.

This is from an increase of $3trillion recorded in 2015. It is roughly estimated that about 60 per cent of Nigerian companies suffered a form of cyber-attack in 2017, many of which went unreported for reasons ranging from, lack of knowledge of such happenings, apathy, fear of losing customers, job security, and many others.

The Founder, Inspaya, Muzudeen Kusimo, said there is a level of education required from those that would be making cybersecurity policies in Nigeria.

“This is necessary so that the policies they are making are right and effective. It is good to make policies but if they do not meet the realities on the ground, then the policies become ineffective. For you to apply these policies effectively, it means you have the right context and that is education. So there is a huge gap in terms of awareness.”

Coming from the United States to be part of NaijaSecCon’18, Charles Nwatu, said he discovered there are a lot of talents to be harnessed in Nigeria, to assist the government and corporate organisation wall off cyber traitors.

Nwatu said: “There is a lot of talent; I have seen the skills set developed. There is an issue of how to​ ​capture that talent and refine it. Structure, maturity and development, all those components are part of the experience. As we continue to have more students come into the program to gain more experience doing the actual work within businesses and companies. Then the maturity changes over time.”

On his part, the Lead Convener, NaijaSecCon’18, Rotimi Akinyele, said the conference was convoked to draw attention to issues around security while increasing wave of cyber crimes.

“There is something called BEC (Business Email Compromise) where you have hackers breaking into companies’ email and making transactions on behalf of the company. Previously, it was phishing. Now, there seems to be a maturity in terms of how these crimes are committed, nowadays you have lots of people using malware and Trojans.