As fraud and insecurity increasingly become more IT based globally, government and other industry stakeholders came together in Lagos yesterday to fashion out a workable blue print to protect Nigeria from cyber security vulnerability.
To the organisers, which included the Office of the National Security Adviser, Federal Ministry of Justice, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), observed that the cyberspace has ushered in new opportunities and security challenges, as wars are now fought and won in the cyberspace, which has also become a highway for fraud and other crimes.
Other objectives of the National Cyber-Security Forum with the theme “Towards multi-stakeholders partnership for national cyber security engagement “ were to harness stakeholders input into the policy framework on cyber security ; to build a national consensus on national cyber security roadmap and to facilitate a unified e-security foundation for digital Nigeria, through a co-ordinated effort.
The forum was also targeted at securing the co-operation, understanding and the support of other critical government agencies and the private sector, which will help in preventing a disjointed policy document, as well as achieving a coherent and all-inclusive strategy in which all other similar cyber security undertakings in the country would be infused into an overall framework of the National Cyber Security Policy.
Speaking at the forum which had representatives of most security organisations in attendance, Magaji Aliyu of the department of Cyber security at the office of national security adviser to the government, said the engagement of all stakeholders would ensure a far reaching inclusion of stakeholders critical views, addressing areas of strategic concerns and laying a foundation for a trusted relationship between the public and organised private sector on cyber security.
Correcting the impression that cyber security is all about cyber crime, Aliyu described cyber security as being concerned with the manipulation or unauthorised use of electronic data, especially the internet. He added that it often led to catastrophies such as loss of huge sums of money, destruction of company data, confusion on aircraft radar control and destruction of servers.
He said the draft document on cyber security would be made available in the website www.cybersecuritynigeria.org.ng for stakeholders contribution.
He further said that the Office of National Security Adviser has observed that cyber security was a collective concern of all key stakeholders and that an effective cyber security policy and strategy involves fundamental inputs of stakeholders for it to be successful.
“This is in line with the Presidential directive to the office of national security to set up a National Cyber security structure through the development of National Cyber Security Policy and National Cyber Security Strategy.
In his contribution, Emmanuel Ekuwem, the chairman of CSB, who spoke on “A unified national cybersecurity strategy” from industry perspective simplified his presentation on cyber security.
He started by asking the Nigerians to imagine that they woke up one day and their bank told them that their data system has crashed, that means the customer’s bank account detail is lost, due to cyber crime . Or that a plane cannot take off or land, or somebody enters your system to send a message to another person and the person acts on the instruction.
According to him, these days, wars can be fought without the enemy entering the physical territory of the opponent. He said a harmonised policy on cybersecurity was in the national interest.
The other organisers of the forum include Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, National Information Technology Development Agency, Galaxy Backbone Limited and Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited.
Daniel Obi
