By Charles Mgbolu
WEB developers and experts in Nigeria who have been monitoring debates traded on the floor of different IT summits held both locally and internationally in recent times in an attempt to finding a lasting solution to the menace posed by cyber criminals have said that by carrying out repeated hack attacks on one’s server system to test for security weaknesses, hackers may be kept at bay.
 
“These hackers target codes that give them administrator level access,” says Metu Kingsley; an IT consultant “These codes should be the ones constantly under fire from these test attacks as an illegal entrant onto this platform will leave an entire site at the hands of the intruder”

Mrs Sarah Aniacholim; a web host expert says “the hackers look out for vulnerable codes and weak links and then ride on them. But if a hack had been previously carried out by the organisation, it would detect these weaknesses and reinforcements quickly made.”

Another respondent, Mrs. Funke Bamigboye an IT consultant said: “These criminals are very patient. Many times they are not lucky to find breaches in the first place but then they keep chiseling away at the walls until a point weakens and opens and then they strike.

A hack simultaneously being carried out by the organisation would have detected this growing weakness on the wall. Immediate fortification would frustrate further attempts on the site.”        
According to the developers, the hack  is not meant to destroy a site that had been built after weeks of hard work but to constantly monitor and fortify the walls.

Already this is a practice creating gainful employment in advanced nations as these computer gurus some of whom were previously criminal hackers are now paid heavily to detect chinks in computer systems armory.

Victor Okeke, a systems analysts said: “There should be room for this sort of monitoring in every corporate structure. Whole departments should be setup to closely see into this as the financial information of unsuspecting victims are usually the ones at stake here.