Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that there’ll be a ransomware attack on businesses every 14 seconds at the end of 2019 and every 11 seconds by 2021. What these statistics underscore is the fact that cybercrime is the greatest threat to every company in the world and one of the biggest problems with mankind.
In 2020, there was a need for an ecosystem of remote work to avoid the Covid-19 pandemic causing an increase in cyber-attacks and breaches. Some governments, organizations, companies, and individuals were not prepared for the digital makeover so most paid a heavy price for such attacks.
As global cyber services expanded, hackers took advantage of the gap in the remote work environment. They, thus, stepped up their game and expanded their attack surface to an unsuspecting and unprepared environment.
In my recent discussion on the Tech Trends show with Joshua Moses, Founder, Diary of Hackers, he shares with us how pivotal it is to take cybersecurity seriously.
CFA: Joshua, glad to have you on the show today.
Joshua: Thank you so much for having me.
CFA: What does cybersecurity mean to you?
Joshua: All right. As we all know, the world is already in a digital form in a digital age. Hence, we need cybersecurity to protect the digital assets, infrastructure, technologies, processes, and the people that are using these technologies. Although cybersecurity is more than that, it, at least, encompasses some of the things that I have mentioned.
CFA: Okay. Can you give us some examples of digital assets that need to be protected?
Joshua: Take for example the bank. The bank uses technology to run everything it does ranging from making transactions to deposits. Now, think about the fact that whenever you put your money in the bank, criminal elements are busy making efforts to siphon the money from your account.
So, cybersecurity is about protecting what you have in the bank. Organizations run their operations via technology as such their information is stored digitally. If such information is not protected, it could leave the organization vulnerable to attack. Attackers could send ransomware into the database of an organization to steal files which would then need a ransom to recover.
Basically, cybersecurity is all about the proactive measures implemented to avoid these circumstances.
CFA: Speaking about ransomware, recently there was a major ransomware attack on the US gas pipeline which caused fuel scarcity. How worried should Nigerian businesses be about the possibility of that happening here?
Joshua: You know, awareness is one of the things that are killing us in Nigeria. I mean, how many organizations have actually read and understood the risk
You may watch the full interview here.
