Zakariyya Adaramola
14 July 2008
Lagos — About $240 million was lost to internet fraudsters in 2007 only, a $40 million increase over reported losses in 2006, a figure from Internet Crime Complaint Center has revealed.
Disclosing this in Lagos at the weekend, the Managing Director of a Lagos-based IT security firm, Global InfoSwift, Mr. Solomon Edun, said theft and other fraudulent practices being committed online is increasing by the day in Nigeria .
According to Mr. Edun, Nigeria is the third of the top 10 countries which are highly susceptible to fraudulent attacks through electronic mails and web pages.
He said, according to the statistics from the Center, an ever-increasing concern around the nature and dynamics of the fraudulent attacks are taking place.
He said the financial services continue to be the most targeted sector at 91.7% of all attacks recorded in December 2007 only, adding that this trend is there to continue if necessary steps are not urgently taken.
His words: "According to the 2007 Internet Crime Report, internet crime resulted in nearly $240 million in reported losses in 2007, a $40 million increase over reported losses in 2006.
"As financial institutions in Nigeria are merging complex IT infrastructures and merging their products and services online, their vulnerability to theft and intellectual property theft is increasing.
" The retrieval of consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials is often achieved by stealing credentials directly using key-logging mechanisms and phisher-controlled proxies or by misdirecting users to non-authentic websites."
According to the MD, Global InfoSwift offers various services to assist organizations identify, manage and mitigate enterprise security risk.
He advised banks to create information security awareness programs and campaigns on behalf of their customers.
" The goal of awareness campaign is crucial to increase the level of security awareness of the banking customers and encourage electronic interactions amongst the banks in Nigeria," he said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
