Deji: Government Should Invest in Cyber Security Enlightenment

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/deji-government-should-invest-in-cyber-security-enlightenment/164895/

This Day Live
21 Nov 2013

Mr. Olusegun Emmanuel Deji is the Chairman of Centrex Ethical Lab, a 
comprehensive solutions ICT company. He spoke with Ojo M. Maduekwe about 
the gains and challenges in the ICT sector.

At the recent World Cyber Security Conference held in Abuja, cybercrime 
was described as a “latent threat to national security and economic 
development.” This description notwithstanding, the menace is not taken 
serious by the ordinary man; what do you think is the reason?

Nigerian has seen cyber security only as a simple issue of a malware or a 
virus till now. Cyber security is about protecting the nation’s digital 
assets from cyber invaders; we only wait until we are attacked, which is 
obviously in a devastating way because people lose their lifelong, asset 
and they never recover from such attacks. Today, national security cannot 
be divorced from cyber security, cyber-attacks and cyber warfare. In fact 
the very definition of security is undergoing a change and that includes 
the security of digital assets, networks. All forms of cyber-attacks are 
here to stay as an analogue society is rapidly transforming into a digital 
one. Everything from money, utilities, financial and social transactions, 
governance, home security, transportation, entertainment and, why, even 
one’s own identity is now digital. With each step towards digitisation a 
previously analogue and physical asset turns into a digital one.

Nigeria is also rapidly turning into a digital society. The focus of 
Nigerian’s cyber security has essentially been on personal digital 
devices. There is a certain justification for it as Nigerian has seen an 
alarming spurt in the growth cybercrimes, especially on the 
fastest-growing social media platforms are the favourite haunts of 
cybercriminals to plant evil. The reason ordinary Nigerians don’ take 
cybercrime serious is because in Nigeria today, people get so confused 
about the attacker and start building defences without really 
understanding who we are actually fighting. On the other hand, governments 
are not putting up programmes to encourage Nigerians on the need to be 
cyber safe, when the conferences end, cyber-attack still continues.

[...]

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