By Prince Osuagwu
ONE of the Technological puzzles facing Nigeria at the moment, is to see how financial transactions can be less dependent on cash but more on electronics and cards. Anywhere in the world, that is known as cashless economy.

The country’s banking industry regulator, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is spearheading this crusade. As a take off measure, the CBN has directed that come January 2012, all banks and financial institutions would have been seen as leading the way to the modern way of transaction by ensuring that minimum cash withdrawals by any individual is limited to One hundred and fifty thousand naira, N150,000 while that of corporate entities can only be one million naira .

That means that transactions beyond these specified amounts would be done electronically.

However, a lot of concerns have been raised over the non availability of other parts that can make the whole project a success.

Chief among the factors is security of the process in an obvious porous Nigerian cyberspace. Another is the place of insurance in the whole gamut of Nigeria’s attempt to cashless society even as experts believed that the attitude of Nigerians to embracing electronic transactions must first of all be tackled.

These concerns were part of deliberations at a recent Information Security workshop organised by the  Information Security Society of Africa, Nigeria, ISSAN in Lagos.

For instance, Director of Security Assurance and Information Risk Management, at a Lagos based information security advisory and assurance company, Digital Encode Limited, Mr Oluseyi Akindele while making a presentation at the event expressed worry at an attempt to entrench a cashless society in a system that virtually all institutions, including even the banking and government agencies were highly vulnerable to different forms of attack by  cyber criminals.

According to him, a majority of the institutions do not have any form of protection in place to warn them of such attack or intrusions to their systems.

Obviously, many organisations in Nigeria are already losing huge sums of money  and investment to cybercriminals and the unfortunate thing about it all is that  most of them are not even aware of their losses.

For Akindele, as the

nation moves towards a cashless economy, there’s need for institutions and corporate bodies especially those involved in online transactions to put in place firm security measures aimed at preventing cybrecriminal from encroaching their systems, otherwise the goal of the cashless initiative would be eroded.

According to him, “current move by the CBN in moving the nation towards a cashless economy raises a great concern as most organisations seem not prepared for change. The level of ignorance among the populace on e-business transactions brings  more risk and exploitation of vulnerability on the e-payment platforms. These things must be see tackled before the gains of cashless society will trickle down”

Corroborating, him, ISSAN president Mr David Isiavwe, in his own speech said that since  virtually everything that we do, from government, banking, aviation, navigation, warfare, banking, health, telecommunication, power systems, among other are  have come to depend heavily on the internet, the concerns on Information Security must be taken seriously.

According to Isiavwe, “Information security is concerned with the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data regardless of the form the data may take: electronic, print, or other forms. Financial institutions, hospitals, telecommunication, corporations and private businesses and others, amass a great deal of confidential information about their customers, employees, products, research findings and financial status. Most of this information is now collected, processed and stored on computers and transmitted across computer networks.

“When any of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data is impaired, security is said to have been breached. There are various threats to information security. Some are very dangerous and disruptive; others are just a nuisance but none should be treated with a kid glove” he added

It could also be recalled that Symantec Inc; an Information security solution provider recently released that with 431 million adult victims globally in the past year and at an annual price of $388 billion globally based on financial losses and time lost, cybercrime may have cost the world significantly more than the global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined, which is pitched at $288 billion.

Need to watch out!

Isiavwe however advocated a joint effort by all stakeholders to fight cybercrime even as organizations must take necessary steps to secure their data, systems and networks. He advised that where an organisation does not have the technical resources in-house, they must engage skilled consultants to fill the gap.

He also challenged the Police and EFCC identify, track and apprehend and punished cybercriminals through the courts. He said this was particularly germane given the efforts of the CBN to achieve a cashless society.

However, a Deputy Director at CBN, Mr Chidi Umeano who represented the CBN governor at the event admitted that the CBN was continuing dialogue and interaction with all stakeholders to ensure the smooth take off of the cashless Lagos project by January 2012.

The project, according to him would benefit the nation at large and is expected to reduce cost by 30% especially when it is implemented nationwide