Cybersafe Foundation tasks ICT journalists to sensitize citizens on cybersecurity threats, solutions

 

The board and management of Cybersafe Foundation, a cybersecurity awareness creator in collaboration with the Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of Nigeria Financial Industry, (CCISONFI) held one-day training on cybersecurity, #NoGoFallMaga training organised for members of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporter Association (NITRA) in Lagos with a charge to become Cyber evangelists to the citizens and leverage their expertise to make what it believes is good money from reporting cybersecurity.

In his opening remarks, the Chairman of CCISONFI, Igboa Abumera noted that the purpose of the training is to continually educate media colleagues through the CyberSafe Foundation and the Central Bank of Nigeria.(CBN) because we are in the era of cyber attacks, while the impact is how we respond and recover.

“Cyber security is the collective responsibility of all because we are hackable and vulnerable,” Abumera said.

Mrs  Favour Femi- Oyewole, Group Chief Information Security Officer, Access Bank, in  her presentation warned that cyber-attacks  would be the next  post-Covid pandemic, adding that it is important for organisations and individuals to begin to build resilience and back-ups for their systems,  platforms and applications.

Femi- Oyewole charged organisations to harp on their ability to bounce back, should they suffer any attack.

“If anything happens to you, how quickly can you bounce back? Have you checked your resilience, do you have a backup”, she asked rhetorically.

She stated that there is a need to put necessary measures in place to quickly detect any breaches and ensure remedy, adding that vulnerability is any flaw or weakness that can be exploited.

“We need to put in counter measures to prevent, minimize or report any breaches on time so that corrective measures can be taken up immediately,” she said.

She explained that the most important and first level of shield and line of defence against cyber-attacks is the human beings who should ensure that they do not open their systems and media platforms to be vulnerable.

Femi-Oyewole enjoined IT journalists to adequately equip themselves with knowledge of trends in the cybersecurity ecosystem so they could help inform the public more accurately.

Bharat Soni, Chief Information Security Officer,GT Bank in his presentation on “Communicating Cyber security and Fraud Incidents effectively to the general public, A media perspective,”  listed the most recent cyber security breaches to include Twitter compromise 2020, Colonial Ransom ware Attack 2021 and Cyber Breach of an Undisclosed Nigerian Bank 2021, and urged organisations to work hard to mitigate cyber security challenges such as insider fraud, business email compromises, ransom ware, critical infrastructure, Dark web and phishing.

Soni, posited that cyber security threats and attacks have become widespread due to technology changes, social economic factors and inadequate criminal justice, adding social media pose a challenge to reporting cyber incidents, as many people do not check the authenticity of news posted on Social Media.

He opined that the rate of cybercrimes have grown exponentially and is consistent with the growth of technology.

According to him, there is a lack of collaboration between different players in the industry as reporting cyber incidents is a painful pill to swallow for organizations.

He revealed that cyber incidents are shrouded in a degree of mystery as victim organizations might first seek to protect the organization before letting out any information that might affect it.

Dr Peter Obadare, a board member of Cybersafe Foundation and Co-Founder at Digital Encode, informed the journalists that they can earn respect and earn trust over time as reporters, hence the need to have a mindset reset from passive reporting to active reporting.

According to him, “It involves cognitive competence which encompasses the theoretical knowledge of cyber security; Functional competence- which is the practical skills; Social Competence-which is behavioural/attitudes with the professionals.”

Obadare reminded the journalists that in other climes their colleagues make a lot of money reporting cybersecurity and enjoined them to have a mindset reset after the training and begin to work towards making money with their skills.

He cited top 26 cybersecurity journalists and reporters to follow that will inspire the average Nigerian journalist who reports cybersecurity.

He explained that although the journalists are working in harsh environments, journalists in Nigeria still have no excuses not to be reckoned with; hence they should keep on learning, continually up their skills and compete favourably among their global peers.

The Founder of Cybersafe Foundation, Mrs. Confidence Staveley, argued that cybersecurity attacks are mainly driven by emotions, desire, fear, greed, urgency, panic, excitement, trust and curiosity.

Staveley disclosed that what cybercriminals mostly want is identity, money, sensitive information and online accounts; hence they use all tactics to deceive people.

She mentioned phishing as one of the tactics being used by the cyber attackers and pointed out some of the measures to identify phishing to include senders email domain address, generic and unfamiliar greeting, presence of poorly written grammar and spelling mistakes, presence of suspicious links, presence of suspicious attachments and the use of fear, urgency, outrageous claims and unusual requests.

The experts, in their various presentations, warn that cybersecurity threats and attacks are still very much with us, warning that the phenomenon could just be the next pandemic.

They also warned that corporate bodies, governments and individuals who refuse to create barricades and walls for their platforms, digital tools and applications against cyber-attacks risk losing a fortune.

The resource persons include Mrs  Favour Femi- Oyewole, Group Chief Information Security Officer, Access Bank, Abumere Igboa, Chief Information Security Officer, Stanbic IBTC, Dr Obadare Peter Adewale, Chief Visionary Officer and Co_Founder at Digital Encode, Confidence Staveley, Cybersafe Foundation and Bharat Soni, Chief Information and Security officer at GTB Limited.