By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isah Ali Pantami has called for caution while Online minimize the risk that one exposes himself to.
Pantami who made the call on Thursday while giving his keynote address at the Annual Cyber Security Conference in Abuja said that people understand that when you go online, you are exposed and you need to take some precautions to ensure that you minimize the risk that you expose yourself to.
He said that such awareness when created will reduce the cyber-crime we are faced with in Nigeria.
In the Minister’s words, “Many people don’t know the implication of receiving an email and going ahead to open the attachment without knowing the source of the email. This is one of the ways our systems are being compromised. Secondly by using pirated software, we usually go for the cheap ones. If you go for the cheaper one, the probability of compromising your system is high, this is another issue.”
“We need to be updating our applications whether on our smart phone or any wire. Any application we have must be updated frequently because whenever you have an application with an up-grade; it is an indication that the previous one has been compromised. So now they have something for you in place to download it and update your own application so that it would be more secured, the minister said.
According to Pantami, today’s conference is very strategic, very key because it is in alignment with the priority area of Mr. President and at the same time in alignment with the national digital economy policy and strategy for our digital Nigeria and at the same time it will go a long way in helping our ICT contribution to our gross domestic product (GDP) to continue to increase by the day.
“As it is today it encouraging, as at 2019 the contribution is unprecedented and this is not sufficient all stakeholders must join hands together to see that this contribution is incremented by the day” he added.
The theme of the conference is: “Strengthening the Security And Resilience of the Nation’s Communications Infrastructure”.
On the aim of the conference, the Minister said ‘We want come up with solution on how to secure our country Nigeria. Again it has been predicted by western digital that by 2025 there will be up to 46.9 billion internets of things applications that will connected to internet globally and within a day they will be generating a minimum of 5 zeta bites which is very huge indeed. So it is an indication that cybercrime will continue to grow, will continue to come up with many challenges so there is need for us to create awareness.
“There is need for us to build our capacity and to ensure that our infrastructure is secure and to come together to discuss and see how we can come up with policies and many more in order to protect ourselves and at the same time to sanction those who compromise the system.
Other dignitaries which attended the conference is the Inspector General Of police, represented by DCP Uche Ifeanyi Henry, Head, Cybercrime Unit, Interpol National Central Bureau, Executive Vice Chairman, NCC among others.
banker of the day - FREE banker tips from experts