Security & Support | |
Security & Support | |
3234 VIEWS | |
![]() | |
PROSHARE | |
PROSHARE |
Saturday,
September 12, 2020 / 04:06 AM / Nifemi Taiyese for Proshare WebTV / Header
Image Credit: FITC
Financial Institutions
Training Centre (FITC) Nigeria in collaboration with Nigeria Interbank
Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) organized the Think Nnovation 2020 cyber security
conference virtually which had as its theme: "Combatting CyberCrime - Strategies for Strengthening Emerging Markets."
Chizor Malize, CIMLon,
MIoD, Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer FITC in her welcome address
said the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the level of cyber attacks in 2020
as organized crime groups have shown themselves to be ruthless and
entrepreneurial, repurposing, phishing, attacking infrastructures and building
fake websites with recorded increase in scams.
"In this age of digital
transformation, there is hardly any process in businesses and personal lives
that are not supported by IT. Information technologies dominate our everyday
lives bringing cyber incidents on the rise. This has made cyberthreats and
attacks increasingly frequent, sophisticated and destructive globally." she
said.
She highlighted that
the financial services sector serves as a perfect bed for hackers, as it
contains information that spans everything a cyber criminal wants from bank
accounts, financial details and identity data.
Malize in her address
commented that she is proud of the collaborative approach in delivering the
mandate of supporting the goals of strengthening the system and driving
industry stability in the financial services sector.
Mr. Phang Hong Lim
Senior Director, Supervisory Guidance Toronto Centre presenting the keynote
address brought to the fore the importance of Sub Saharan Africa in achieving
cyber resilience, due to the unique nature of cyber risks.
Speaking on the usual
starting point for cyber regulators, he stated that it is important to have the
required documents necessary to identify the critical assets that needs to be
protected, while having clear responsibilities.
He noted that the
systems used today in the IT space are not secure by design and can easily be
exploited.
His presentation
covered areas on how to help achieve resilience in the financial services
sector.
"There's a need to develop
regulatory and supervisory approaches, which will enable banks to attain
effective control of cyber risks through developing effective cyber risk
management which will help to provide stronger resilience for protecting
customer information.", he said.
He stressed the fact
that actionable intelligence will help to improve cyber security of financial
institutions. According to him, security is only as strong as its weakest
link. Banks should always consider their weakest link in the process chain of
their cybersecurity defense. The need to adopt cyber threat intelligence for
the sharing of information on cyber attacks regionally, globally, among
industry experts and also at regulatory levels".
The expert called for
the cooperation and coordination of the financial services institution, adding
that the financial services sector needs the capability and talents to build
cyber defense by changing the way of thinking to embrace innovation.
He brought to the fore
the need to find better ways to respond quicker to cyber-attacks through
technical solutions which according to him can be achieved through
technological/innovation development.
Mr Lim also advocated
the need to ramp up education and skills development in the tech space along
with technological trends, and the need for the financial services sector to
enhance cyber resilience.
The virtual conference
featured several plenary sessions.
The first plenary
session had its topic as 'Cybersecurity and Financial Services: Imperatives,
Risks and Control'. The panelists were Favour Femi Oyewole Chief Information
Security Officer, Access Bank, Christopher Wilson Monetary and Capital Market
Department, IMF, Griffith Ehebha CRO, Interswitch Group, Ezekiel Oyeniyi Ajao
Deputy Managing Director NIBSS and Adedoyin Odunfa CEO Digital Jewels
moderating the session.
The DMD, NIBSS, Mr.
Ezekiel Oyeniyi Ajao in setting the tone for the conversation identified
cybersecurity to be information technology security, processes and practices
that are designed to protect data, networks and devices from unauthorized
access and attack.
Mr. Ajao said Nigeria's
fraud analysis showed a moderate shift towards web and mobile channels, however
it should be noted that the total number of attempts in H1, 2019 and H1, 2020
showed a 104% growth year on year.
He identified some of
the common cyber-attack threats to watch out for as, ransomware, data
breach/leakage, insecure application user face, cloud abuse, malware attack,
loss of data, hacking, APT, single factor passwords and so on.
According to him "as businesses go digital, fraud will not only follow suit, but will also
become more complex and lethal".
Speaking further he
asserted that it is important for organizations to be aware of the following
ways to protect their businesses from cyber-attacks.
"CBN has mandated all
DMBs, MMOs and switches to establish fraud desks for ongoing monitoring of
fraud and cybercrime activity" he said.
Conclusively, he said
customer education remains the most important means of mitigating social
engineering attacks and institutions are encouraged to focus on this.
The Chief Information
Officer Security Officer for Access Bank Mr. Femi Oyewole in his remarks said
with the emergence of work from home, the battle to enforce data protection is
now critical to prevent data leakages as insider threats has also contributed
to cybercrimes through staff working with external syndicates to defraud
organizations.
She advised that
technology control will ensure that some of these threats are curbed, by taking
proactive measures to ensure that every worker connected to enterprise network
is accounted for to keep organization away from threats.
Mr. Griffith Ehebha,
Chief Risk Officer, Interswitch Group highlighted the fact that threat actors
have adopted a single method that has resonated across Africa, through the use
of ransomware with updated signatures.
The CRO Interswitch
emphasized the fact that there is need to protect data better and also manage
incidence response against cyber threats.
"We need to put more
resilience around our technology practices and practice incidence response more
often" She said.
Mr Christopher Wilson
of the Monetary and Capital Market Department, International Monetary Fund
(IMF) giving his intervention mentioned that financial institutions
implementing industry standards should ensure supervisors encourage an
enterprise approach to risk management, and also adopt crisis management
exercises.
He opined that the
senior management has a role to play in implementing cybersecurity strategy and
cascading it around the organization.
The second plenary
session focused on 'Cybersecurity and Digital Transformation: Challenges for
Emerging Markets'. The panelists were Tope Aladenusi Partner/Head, Cyber Risk
Services Deloitte, West Africa, Ademola Adebise MD/CEO Wema Bank, Azeez
Oluwafemi Head, Product and Innovation Flutterwave, Isaiah Adeleke representing
Musa I. Jimoh Director Payment Systems CBN moderated by Nkemdilim U. Begho CEO
Future Software Resources.
Mr. Tope Aladenusi
Partner/Head, Cyber Risk Services Deloitte, West Africa provided the scope of
pre plenary discourse covered digital transformation - Emerging Technology
Trend 2020, cyber trends in emerging markets, cyber security challenges in
emerging markets and combating cyber security challenges in emerging markets.
He said Banks in
Nigeria are currently undergoing transformation through Artificial
Intelligence, cloud, internet of things, robotics and so on that are the
emerging trends of 2020.
Aladenusi added that "according to the Global Software Survey, approximately 57% of software used in
Africa and the Middle East are unlicensed which means that upgrades and
security patches will not be installed".
He stressed the fact
that the challenges of cybercrime comes with embracing the technological
advancements. He identified the challenges as shortage of cyber security
skillsets, insufficient attention to cyber risks that come with digitalization
and lack of collaboration and coordinated threat reports within similar
industries.
To combat the challenge
of cyber security, Mr Aladenusi said financial organizations need to develop
and implement effective cybersecurity risk management system that will help in
identifying risk areas and assist in reducing the impact of cyber incidence,
and the enhanced ability to detect emerging threats and attackers moves while
implementing 24/7 monitoring.
Mr Ademola Adebise, the
MD/CEO Wema Bank, on his part said it is important to have external accessors
to test systems of enterprises in order to minimize risk and deal with issues
holistically.
Mr Azeez Oluwafemi,
Head, Product and Innovation Flutterwave, in his contribution advised that when
building a new product, security should not be an afterthought.
For him "When building
a product that involves a payment system, it is important to go the extra mile
to protect the system and the end users, because security is key".
He said information is
key, thus an open sharing community should be created to alert players to
understand the current trends, the last threats and how it was mitigated, in
order not to be playing catch up with cyber criminals and to ensure that an
attack does not repeat itself in the industry.
The third plenary session addressed the issue of 'Cybersecurity and IT infrastructure Protection', while the fourth and final plenary session covered 'Building Cybersecurity for Financial Services Growth'.
Related
News
1.
FITC and NIBSS to Host Largest
Financial Services Sector Cybersecurity Conference in Africa
2.
Bankers' Committee launch "Moni
Sense" Campaign to boost Fraud Awareness
3.
When the Cookie Crumbles: Phasing out
third-party Cookies - By Elo Umeh
4.
Zooming In: Voice Over Internet
Protocol and the Corollary Regulatory Regime in Nigeria
5.
Data Backup and Security Guideline as
Impact Mitigation Strategies in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic
6.
COVID-19: Visa Shares Tips on How to
Stay Secured When Shopping Online
7.
COVID-19: Cyber Risks, Insurance and
Us
8.
Financial Fraud Solutions Must Beat
the Best Criminal Minds And Match The Rate Of Digital Change
9.
Safer Internet Day: Facebook and Nine
Partners across Africa to Work Together for a Better Internet
10. Cybercrime in Nigeria: Causes and
Effects
11. Cybersecurity Threats Call for a
Global Response
12. How to Best Securely Handle Documents
in a Modern Office
13. Financial Institutions Face Growing
Cyber Risk Ratings Pressure
14. New Cybersecurity Rules For Banks
15. Security, Conflict and Information
Management in Nigeria
16. 5 Futuristic Tips To Secure Your
Privacy Online
17. Facebook To Pay $100m For Misleading
Investors About The Risks It Faced From Misuse Of User Data
18. Addressing Business Cybersecurity:
The Top Measures That Companies Must Take
19. World Economic Forum: Investors Must
Prioritize Cybersecurity Or Risk Losing Money
20. Cyber Security and Businesses