By Emmanuel Elebeke

IF Nigeria is prepared to plug the cyber loopholes that cost it about N40 billion in 2015 alone, it must take a few lessons from the United States of America. This was part of the revelations that emerged at the cybersecurity summit which began in Abuja yesterday. The country is being advised to be a bit more proactive in strengthening its fight against cybercrime and other internet related crimes.

At a pre event briefing to herald the conference, one of the sponsors of the summit, Andreas Linde, said Nigeria has no alternative to adopting  more  proactive  cybersecurity measures to combat cyber criminality due to the negative impacts on the economy and society.

“In America  the FDA is in charge of giving information. It recently ordered hospitals to remove all devices that aid cybercrime and also ordered the removal of all wireless connections that are not secured in the country as part of measures to tackle cybercrime.

Available technologies

”We have seen many examples where energy facilities were attacked without protection in Europe. So to combat attacks, Nigeria should deploy available technologies in the market.”

He added that some researches carried out on critical infrastructure recently showed that about 50 per cent of power stations worldwide do not have protection whatsoever. As a country, the society needs power and other critical infrastructure to function.

“ The hackers are not just bad guys only, some of them are also activists. They might be government agents  that might steal information to earn some benefits. That is why the fight has to be holistic.

With the new cybersecurity law in place, Linde said the country only needs to broaden its approach in partnering with the private sector operators and building the capacity of its personnel if the war against cyber criminals will ever succeed.

“We are facing a situation, where governments need to exchange information with each other. That will bring a lot of challenges, not only in Nigeria but other nations because they require to provide better information devoid of threat. This is not easy, but we are standing in the middle of it.

“But we are here to assist Nigerian government tackle cybercrime. Following the bold step taken by the country in signing the 2015 Cyber security bill into law, it is imperative to do it now to save that bold step already taken.

“Cyber attacks need to be combated because the impact affects banks, oil facilities, government, causing a lot of damages. The most worrying signal is the we noticed that the likelihood of the criminals getting caught is minimal. This is not helpful” he added.

Meanwhile, the President/CEO, Integrated cyber security Solutions Limited, Michael Oseji (partners to the conference) disclosed that Nigeria lost about N40 billion to Cybercrminals only in 2015, a situation he said cannot be allowed to continue if the economy must survive.