Cybersecurity is the act of safeguarding servers, cell phones, computers, networks, electronic systems, and information from malicious attacks. It is also called electronic information security or information technology security. It applies to various contexts, from business to mobile processing, and can be isolated into a couple of standard classifications.
There was a time when oil companies controlled the world since oil was considered as the most valuable resource. However, the 21st century comes with the wonders of technological innovations, and not a single person or a single household can be found without a smart device or some sort of technology, and data has become the new oil. This is something we hear over very often. As the world becomes globalized into technology, it comes with its perks and downsides. Individuals who manage information security (also known as cyber experts) are of the view that cyber incidents will keep happening. Breach of information, computer malware, cyber scams, hacking still occur on different levels and as technology develops, so too do individuals develop better skills in acquiring people’s data illegally. It is therefore vital to have a scheme to stop the attacks, which is where cybersecurity comes in, which is a method of managing the new resource. A majority of the digital incidents either cause permanent loss of data, servers or money. It goes to the extent of hackers maliciously targeting huge global credit companies, banks to steal money through acquiring personal data. Some of them are as small as sending the wrong message to the wrong person, causing huge data loss.
Nonetheless, to be able to address the cybersecurity problem, or to solve the problems regarding breach of information, it is important to have knowledge of the specific data that has been stolen and by whom. It is with this data that organizations and clients can respond to protect themselves. The Nigerian media hardly reports cyber attacks. And this can not be used to measure the extent of data loss because companies are not obligated to share information about the loss of consumer data.
In Nigeria, an average person is well acquainted with the stressful process of registering for digital services such as buying a sim card for their mobile phones and registering for mobile banking services like getting a bank card, and many other digital services. These registration processes require individuals to fill in their names, dates of birth, personal addresses, as a result, the banks and network providers know every move of customers registered to their service. A bank knows when, where, and what people spend their money on. They regularly give bank card subtleties on organization sites, and many individuals reuse similar secret phrases over numerous locales. Some people use a single password for several platforms and also save their bank card details on certain websites for easy access. Many people don’t double-check how their personal information is being used, since they routinely give it out as a necessary process to get services, and are not aware when there is a breach of their personal data, or don’t even ask questions about the possibility of any data breaches. And the main problem with digital service providers in Nigeria is that they don’t treat customers’ personal information with the right amount of care that is needed to protect them from any data breaches.
There is so little trust among digital economy users in terms of cybersecurity that they would much prefer to have direct contact with a peer when there’s a transaction going on rather than working with a middleman. Because the middleman is usually the biggest target and the one that hackers go for, so they might as well have smaller peer-to-peer transactions to stay safe. This is also the case with currency exchange. Many Nigerians favor ECN FX brokers as they directly connect their orders to other peers rather than registering it on the marketplaces.
The scale of the cyber threat
In 2016, Nigeria ranked the 16th worst country in the world with regards to its vulnerability in cyberattacks, which is a slight improvement from the previous year where it ranked worse. About 60% of Nigerian firms were victims of cyberattacks, although they spent millions of naira on online protection. However, none of these companies reports the attacks. These companies still lose billions of Nigeria in expenditures for cybersecurity just like a majority of other countries, yet, they are still falling short in protecting private information. What is puzzling about this is that Nigerian firms spend per the average global GDP, yet they are still too vulnerable.
Is the money effectively spent?
For there to be effective spending in cybersecurity, organizations would have to collect information on the most well-known kinds of cyberattacks and build up a division or a strategy that would have the best effect in fighting any attacks. With the number of scams happening in the country, the best solution will be to provide people with cheap education with regard to issues like fake emails and phishing scams. Without information on the sort of breaches, it will be difficult to solve the problem.
Who does the company data breaches affect?
In company settings, although cyberattacks target the companies, the people who are greatly affected by it are the customers and the general public. Companies are supposed to be mandated by the government to report data breaches so that individuals can take personal measures to protect themselves and their private information. And the companies might likely not react to protect the customers since there is no compelling reason to react especially from Nigeria Data Protection Regulation.
