Last year seemed like the year of ‘rising cyberattacks’ because of the record number of ransomware attacks, phishing scams, state-sponsored attacks, new attack vectors, botnets and many more that occurred.
One wonders what lies ahead this year. Are we likely to see an increase or decrease in attacks? This is one question that has been on my mind considering the fact that Nigeria seems not to understand that it is susceptible to these types of attacks with far-reaching and devastating consequences.
I thought about distributed denial of service, malware in the cloud, ransomware, cyber warfare, election hacking, blockchain legislation, breaches in big data, etc. These are different forms of cyberattacks which all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, other government establishments, the organised private sector and the general public are likely to experience this year. In that case, tightening and beefing up our cybersecurity armoury cannot be questioned.
That said, I was quite relieved when I received an advisory from the management of National Information Technology Development Agency titled ‘Guidance on Combating Cyber Security Threats’ which drew the attention of all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, other government establishments, and the general public to the potential cyberattacks likely to be experienced this year.
The advisory reads in part: “The agency is working with all critical stakeholders to come up with effective ways of adequately protecting the Nigerian cyberspace. We therefore call on all Nigerians to support the agency by doing their best at protecting themselves as well as the information and systems under their care.”
This is a great move for the nation and it is a sign that we are putting cyber security on the front burner. NITDA, under the leadership of the Director-General, Isa Ibrahim, is not just awakening the cyber security consciousness of these organisations but also providing necessary precautionary measures to deal with them.
The agency’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team in conjunction with other industry stakeholders are also ensuring safe and secure cyberspace.
According to the statement: “they have intercepted some signals of potential cyber-attacks targeting banking, health, and other systems, power and transportation systems, as well as other critical national infrastructure.”
I will share below some of the precautionary measures contained in that report so that Nigerians are aware:
- Efforts should be intensified at ensuring that any data is encrypted, particularly sensitive or personal data;
- Ensure that networks are fully secure through the use of wired network thereby protecting them from possible hackers’ attempt at using Wi-Fi security lapses to remotely break into — Finish Reading on the Punch
