NaijaSecCon’18: Experts seek improved education on cyber security in Nigeria … As Team Phantom emerges winners of hackaton competition
Participants
at the second edition of NaijaSecCon have been exposed to insights and
discussions around malware analyses; cryptocurrency mining, USB forensics,
digital forensics capabilities, programming and different topics around
security.
Speakers
at the conference held in Lagos on Friday, May 4, 2018, are of the view that
lack of education on technical aspects of Information Security could hurt the
economy in the nearest future.
Their
unanimous views stem from the report which projects that the devastating effect
of cyber-crime will cost about $6trillion by 2021.
This
is from an increase of $3 trillion recorded in 2015. It is roughly estimated
that about 60% of Nigerian companies suffered a form of cyber-attack during the
year 2017, many of which went unreported for reasons ranging from, lack of
knowledge of such happenings, apathy, fear of losing customers, job security,
etc.
The Founder of
Inspaya, Muzudeen Kusimo, said there is a level of education required from
those that would be making cybersecurity policies in Nigeria.
“This
is necessary so that the policies they are making are right and effective. It
is good to make policies but if they do not meet the realities on the ground,
then the policies become ineffective. For you to apply these policies
effectively, it means you have the right context and that is education. So
there is a huge gap in terms of awareness.
“We
have been having significant conversations with stakeholders both in Nigeria
and the diaspora about the needs to alter the curriculum to reflect the current
realities in the cyberspace. And some of the ways to do that is to
work with the universities and educationists in making sure that we introduce
some of these courses. In the long run, this is going to form the core of the
knowledge for cybersecurity.
“The
goal is that after you finish the regular two or four years programme from the
higher institutions, students will have some level of awareness that would take
them to the next level. From there, they get actively involved in cybersecurity
activities".
Coming
from the United States to be part of NaijaSecCon’18, Charles Nwatu, said he
discovered there are a lot of talents to be harnessed in Nigeria to assist the
government and corporate organisation wall off cyber traitors.
Nwatu
said, “There is a lot of talent; I have seen the skills set developed. There is
an issue of how to capture that talent and refine it. Structure, maturity and
development, all those components are part of the experience. As we continue to
have more students come into the program to gain more experience doing the
actual work within businesses and companies. Then the maturity changes over
time.
“The
talent is there. We need more education and refining these talents to
understand the rules of engagement when it comes to cybersecurity practices. We
want to ensure that we operate effectively in the cybersecurity space and not
to put anyone in jeopardy.
He
further called for right policies be put in place to assist the industry
grow.
“The
message for the entire public is cybersecurity, the talent is here. We need
investments in infrastructure, maturity, housing, good policies from the
government. We just need a collective effort especially from the people, to
push this course”, he said.
On
his part, the Lead Convener of NaijaSecCon’18, Rotimi Akinyele said the
conference was convoked to draw attention to issues around security while
increasing wave of cyber crimes.
“There
is something called BEC (Business Email Compromise) where you have hackers
breaking into companies’ email and making transactions on behalf of the
company. Previously, it was phishing. Now, there seems to be a maturity in
terms of how these crimes are committed, nowadays you have lots of people using
malware and Trojans.
“As
for BEC, in the recent, it was reported that Nigeria hackers break into emails
making transfers. What they do is to liaise with other sophisticated criminals
all over the world. They buy most of these hacking tools from them and what
they need to do is to embed this malicious code in an email and send. When the
target clicks, they have access and start carrying out transactions on their
behalf.
“There
is also another attack known as the CEO and CFO Fraud. Hackers get access to
the CEOs email and send email to the CFO asking him to make a fund transfer.
This sort of attack is somehow recent and it looks like is being in the
limelight for such attack”, he said.
Commenting
on the competition, Akinyele said the university students were involved to
participate in ethical hacking challenges.
Over
ten teams qualified and participated in the hackathon with Team Phamtom
emerging the overall winners. “The whole idea is to set them up in the right
career path”, he said.
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