Nigeria Redoubling Efforts Against Cybercrimes, ICT Equipment Vandalism

Federal Republic of Nigeria Minister of Communication Technology Mrs. Omobola Johnson is focusing on cyber crimes., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Redoubling efforts against cybercrimes, ICT equipment vandalism

WEDNESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2013 00:00 ADEYEMI ADEPETUN AND ANTHONY OTARU COMPULIFE - COMPULIFE
Nigerian Guardian

Nigeria’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector has over the last 10 years, attracted investments worth over $30 billion. These investments have raised Nigeria’s profile as a top destination for investors in sub-Sahara Africa. However, this bourgeoning sector is plagued by many challenges, including porous cyberspace, vandalism and multiple taxations, among others. ADEYEMI ADEPETUN and ANTHONY OTARU, in this report, examine moves by government to mitigate the aforementioned.

VARIOUS studies have indicated that about 75 per cent of Internet content is from the United States of America, 20 per cent from Europe while Asia holds 5.95 per cent. Africa’s content in the global knowledge base is only 0.5 per cent.

While this is noteworthy, scammers across the globe are capitalising on every loophole to wreak havoc on unsuspecting or vulnerable victims through cyber crime activities.

Besides, the world is said to be losing over $114 billion to the nefarious act, almost on a yearly basis.

According to analysts, more worrisome is the fact that cyber crime has become bigger than the global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined.

An increasing number of institutions, particularly banks and their customers have become targets of phishing attacks, with varying degrees of success. Scam emails flood customers’ inboxes on an almost-daily basis. Such emails are drafted to create the impression that their financial institutions are contacting the customers. A number of these emails ask customers to divulge confidential information such as their account numbers, PINs and passwords. ATM cards are also targeted for cloning in order to commit fraud. The increasing use of smartphones to conduct financial transactions and the associated vulnerabilities make it even more imperative for action to be taken sooner rather than later.

Given the negative and often devastating impact of cybercrime on businesses around the world, and the concerns raised by such activity in Nigeria, the calls for legal and, to some extent, political intervention in the fight against cybercrime have grown steadily.

However, there are claims that cyber criminals are already exploiting vulnerabilities and loopholes in national and regional legislation across the globe.

While the challenge of cybercrime persists, telecoms operators are also saddled with vandalisation of their facilities, including fibre cables, generators and Base Transceiver Stations, among others.

From Gombe to Yola and Enugu, among others, the story is the same. It has been a recurring problem.

But in renewed efforts, the federal government has announced new measures being taken to stem these challenges.

Disclosing this at the just concluded 2013 Edo State Technology Day held in Benin, with the theme ‘Fostering Governance with Technology’, the Minister of Communication technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said that the Federal Executive Council had already approved a comprehensive cyber security bill that would soon be submitted to the National Assembly for passage into law after due stakeholder consultation.

The minister stressed that the bill addressed the designation of ICT infrastructure as critical national information infrastructure, saying that having such law in place “should serve as a major deterrent to individuals who are perpetrating atrocious crimes in cyber space.”

She also said that in order to strengthen the country’s resources dedicated to combating cyber crime, the telecoms industry umpire, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to establish a regional cyber security centre in Nigeria.

“This centre will facilitate collaboration on combating cyber threats at national and regional levels,” she said, stressing that “The protection of citizen online activities will require investments in systems that reduce the possibility of identity theft to complement robust privacy laws that protect citizen information that is available online.”

Also on Monday in Abuja, Acting Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA), Dr. Ashiru Sani Daura said that in the coming months, the agency would intensify effort towards the passage of the cyber security and other pending Information Technology bills into law.

Daura said: “We will ensure that standards and best practices are enforced in our IT activities. We will soon start enforcing quality assurance through software in the public sector as a first step.”

According to him, when fully developed, the IT sector would be well positioned to be an economic enabler to other sectors.

Indeed, over the years, stakeholders have raised great concerns over what they described as poor or lack of it for ICT infrastructures, given the central role technology plays in today’s global economy where sustainable ICT access by the citizens has become important. Besides, its usage by the government and accessibility to business determines a country’s competitiveness.

It is, therefore, instructive that the violation of the laws by any individual or corporate entity, if passed into laws, would attract punishment and as such, stakeholders such as the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) have commended the government efforts in this new direction.

The two’ associations’ appreciation of the government’s move on these two fronts – protection of ICT facilities and cyber security bill – is coming following the realisation that, having quickly put Nigeria on map with robust telecom growth, operators and their facilities have unfortunately become major targets in all manner of attack.

According to the National Chairman (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, government should fast-track the achievement of the critical national security infrastructure status for telecoms facilities, stressing that “operators currently lose huge amount of money to such destructions caused to operators infrastructures,” even as he pointed out that the lack of legal shield for ICT infrastructures could discourage further local and Foreign Direct investment into the country.

For instance, late last year, the country’s largest telecommunications operator, MTN Nigeria, has disclosed that it recorded no fewer than 70 cases of vandalism/fibre cuts to its facilities.

“This cost more money to repair these damaged facilities as such money could have been more judiciously invested in further expanding our network,” MTN’s Corporate Service Executive, Mr. Akinwale Goodluck, said.

Other telecoms companies such as Globacom, Airtel, among others have been found to be facing similar damages to their sites and fibre cables deployed all over the country.

Meanwhile, the NCC’s Public Affairs Director, Mr. Tony Ojobo, has listed few of the areas to be protected in the telecoms sector.

“We have recognised the need to ensure protection for all the facilities that drive over 120 million active telephone lines in the country,” he said. “Numerous base stations constructed by operators and other telecoms facility service providers.”

He reckoned that as a result of the inactivity of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its lack of capacity to support their operations at roll out, telecoms operators have had to deploy fibre optic cables, spanning the length and breadth of the country.

Pointing out the security implications for countries, whose ICT facilities are prone to attacks and all forms abuse, a telecoms industry expert, Mr. Akin Akinbo, said: “There are serious security implications for a country that is not digitally connected. It will be great to see the industry protected from unnecessary destruction and vandalisation.”

Akinbo said that it was also important to note that the passage into law of the cyber security bill would help to bring sanity into the nation’s cyber space in the current electronic payment reforms going on both at the private and public sector in the country.

According to the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, Electronic Payment providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN), Mrs. Onajite Regah, the country was in dire need of solid cyber security laws, as there were no many known laws in that directly address the cases of online fraud and fully support electronic evidence.

“We need in this economy and, in no small measure, it would help in supporting the nascent cashless economy initiative being driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

Already, the leveraging of ICT for handling finance functions in the public sector is generating huge successes while industry experts argue that enacting the cyber security laws would help in preventing the successes being recorded from being truncated anytime soon.

For instance, the minister noted that the Edo Technology Day “Information Technology has been introduced into budgetary and financial management to reduce the need for manual intervention and increase transparency.”

According to her, as part of e-government effort to use ICTs by government agencies to transform (and improve) the traditional interactions between government and its citizens as well as the business community, Federal Government has deployed the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) to manage the budget execution process and helps identify and address sources of leakage in budget execution.

Citing other examples of ICT-driven government services, Johnson said that the single window e-services portal recently launched by the Nigeria Customs Services (NCS) was an example of a positive development in the Government-to-Government (G2B) space.

She said: “This portal provides a one -stop shop where rules and regulations are easily accessible; will enhance ease of compliance for businessmen and women using the NCS and will enable a more effective and efficient allocation of resources.

“The Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), a biometric-based systems, has discovered about 46, 000 “ghost workers” and saved the government approximately N119 billion so far. Also, 215 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have been captured onto the IPPIS system and another 321 will be added by year-end with more savings expected.”

To further strengthen IT development in the country, the NITDA DG said that the IT sector would be well positioned to be an economic enabler to other sectors.

He explained that government would use IT to create jobs and wealth through a focused implementation of the national software and outsourcing policies.

The NITDA acting director general noted that the indiscriminate import of software, which had not gone through regulatory checks of the agency, was alarming just as he pledged commitment to stopping it.

‘’The way software come into Nigeria is worrisome and detrimental to Nigeria’s IT industry,” he noted.

‘’A software testing association in partnership with NITDA was in the offing to check and test all software being developed in the country or imported before allowed into the market. This is our resolve to be carried out in the coming weeks,” he stressed.