$450m lost to cyber crime in Nigeria – Senate

The Senate, yesterday, said Nigeria has lost about $450 million to 3,500 cyber attacks on its Information and Communication Technology, ICT, space.
According to the Senate, this represents over 70 per cent of hacking attempts on technology in the country.

Against this backdrop, the Senate asked the National Security Adviser, NSA, Major-General Mohammed Babagana Monguno (retd), to, as a matter of urgency, alert all security agencies and financial institutions in the country about the current and threatening dimensions of cyber attacks.
The Senate also asked its Committee on ICT and Cybercrime to immediately convoke a national stakeholders’ conference on cyber security that would help stimulate what it described as a collective reflection among relevant stakeholders and articulate a national and broad-based approach to keep the country ahead of the challenges.
The Senate, which noted that the figures were arrived at by revelations from studies, expressed concern that government servers were currently under serious threat.
The upper chamber, however, lamented that the ICT shortfall in Nigeria was enormous, while its cyberspace had become very porous, adding that the system lacked a well-structured and effective approach to cyber-crime control, according to the oversight findings of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime.
Yesterday’s resolutions of the Senate were sequel to a motion by Senator Abdulfatai Buhari (APC Oyo North), entitled: “Worrisome dimension of cyber-crime and insecurity, urgent need for concerted efforts to secure Nigeria’s cyberspace.”
Meanwhile, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over yesterday’s plenary, however, called for concerted efforts at confronting the cyber war currently threatening the world.
Ekweremadu noted that criminals had on a daily basis been hacking into the e-mails and other accounts of very important people on social media.
He said: “It is worrisome that cyber war is coming and we all need to be prepared to fight it. It is expected that all stakeholders will rise and deal with it.”
Earlier in his presentation, Senator Abdulfatai said the Senate noted that the positive posture of ICT revolution was being dampened by malicious activities of criminal elements in society who invade cyberspace, presenting risks to businesses, national economies and security, such as malicious use of the social media, identity theft, electronic fraud, data damage or alteration, espionage, etc;