Minister of Communications, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami says Federal the ministry is adopting new strategies and technologies to tackle Cybercrime in Nigeria because the crime travels at the speed of light while cyber security travels at the speed of law.
The Minister explained that part of the strategies being adopted include the recent 5 G trial in Abuja and capacity building as well as ensuring that our infrastructure is secured and adoption of new policies and laws that will help us protect ourselves.
He stated this on Thursday at the maiden Cyber Security Conference organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), tagged: “Strengthening the Security and Resilience of the Nation’s Communications Infrastructure’’ in Abuja.
Pantami said that the fight against cybercrime became critical because statistics had indicated that Cybercrime is the fastest growing crime in the US and even globally.
According to him, Cybercrime travels at the speed of light while cyber security travels at the speed of law and so must be tackled with the urgency it requires.
The Minister, who cited Western Digital, predicted that 46.9billion IoT applications will be connected to internet globally by 2025, and within a day will be generating a minimum of 5 Zetabyte.
‘‘The way Cybercrime is growing, there is need for us to come up with policies and strategies that will help secure our country. We are adopting new technologies, we recently adopted 5G trial; we have so many internet of Things and applications connected to internet.
‘‘There is high probability that the way we connect to internet for ease of doing business, can be compromise. So, there is need for us to come together to seek for solutions on how to secure our country Nigeria.
‘‘It has been predicted by Western Digital that by 2025 there could be 46.9billion IoT applications that will be connected to internet globally, and within a day will be generating a minimum of 5 Zetabyte.
‘‘It is an indication that cybercrime will continue to grow. We will continue to come up with new challenges. Build our capacity, ensure that our infrastructure is secured and to come up with policies and laws that will help us protect ourselves,’’ he said.
The Minister however, advised that the best way to secure the cyberspace was through awareness and it was key for the people to understand and get exposed when online.
“We should ensure that we secure our cyberspace through creating awareness; awareness is key, let people understand that when you go online you are exposed.
“You need to take some precautions to ensure that you minimize the risk of exposing yourself to it. If we create that awareness, it will go a long way in reducing the cybercrime we have in Nigeria.
“Many people do not know the implication of receiving emails without knowing the source just to go and open the attachment, this is one of the ways that our systems are being compromised and secondly through using pirated supplier.
“We usually look at the cheapest one. If we go for the cheaper one, the probability of compromising our system is high; we need to be updating our applications wether on our smartphones or anywhere.” he said
Earlier, the Executive Chairman (EVC) NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, said that the target of the Commission is the privacy and security of information deployed over telecoms networks.
He also informed that the Commission is taking steps to guarantee privacy and security of information deployed over telecoms network.
‘‘Already there are measures in place to ensure privacy and security of information over telecoms networks. We want to put more measures in place to protect the networks from cybercriminals who device various means to access the networks.
‘‘This protection will inspire confidence in subscribers of telecoms services in the continue to continue subscribing to those services with confidence that their data is secured. Two key issues: privacy and security of information deployed over telecoms network is our target.
‘‘We want to ensure that the information hosted by telecom service providers is safe and secured. That is the strategy that will come out. Already there are measures in place to ensure privacy and security of information over telecoms networks. We want to put more measures in place to protect the networks from cybercriminals who device various means to access the networks,’’ he added.
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