By Ibukun Emiola
Ibadan – Experts in cybersecurity and information technology have urged companies to invest in cybersecurity by training and retraing of their staff.
They observe that training and putting good policies in place will prevent cybercrime which is on the increase due to the effects of COVID-19 on the economy.
They stated this in a webinar organised by Ibadan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) in Ibadan on Wednesday, entitled: “Cybercrime and cybersecurity: Imperatives for taking people and businesses online”
Mr Adebayo Adedeji, an Information Technology Security Consultant, said that the impact of cyber attacks on corporate entities could be devastating as “it destabilises organisations and makes it lose its competitive edge”.
He enjoined organisations to put policies in place that would deny unauthorised persons access to their devices and to regularly update their computer systems.
Adedeji said “when a software is written, it is not 100 per cent secured, so the developer writes updates to make it secure.
“So it is important to update the company’s devices whenever such updates are available.
“Also upgrading the operating system of personal computers, installation of anti malware and use of strong passwords or passphrases as well as avoiding free public wifi are some of the ways to reduce cyber attacks.
“Organisations should use encrypted services to secure their data and prevent intruders from getting access to their data.”
Also, Mr Ebongabasi Epkejuda, a security consultant said that organisations should spend money on training their staff and not allow employees to use their personal computers to do company’s work so as to limit the risk of cyber hacking.
“Training and retraining their staff to understand cybersecurity is one way to get ahead of hackers.
“Backing up your data on your system in an external drive or in the clouds are necessary so that such data can be restored in case of any cyber attacks.
“Use of strong passwords made up of characters and numerical codes are essential as well as frequent change of these passwords,” he said.
Another member of the panel, Mrs Mary Uduma of the Africa Internet Governance Forum, said “there are three major impacts of cybercrime which are economic, social and development impacts.
“The social impact of cybercrime on Nigeria is that it has painted the country in black.
She urged organisations to invest in cybersecurity and ensure that their data were well kept in more than one storage.
“Our data can be iced or archived or even be stored in the cloud service to make data recovery easy.
“Confidentiality of our data is important, it must be accurate and available.
“People should be wary of juicy offers be it job or money or bonanza.
“There should be companies’ data policies to minimize risk and also data alarms can be set to notify any intruder,” she said
Earlier in his address, Chief Sola Abodunrin, the President of ICCI said that the webinar was organised to secure the business activities of its members from hackers and scammers.
He said the event put together by the Business and Educational Entrepreneurship Committee of ICCI became necessary with the increased incidents of cybercrime and theft heightened by the effects of COVID-19.
“A lot of people had little or nothing to do during the lockdown and many have become idle due to loss of job and have taken to cybercrime.
“A lot of business people have been hacked either through their emails or WhatsApp even the account of some people have been hacked,” he said.(NAN)
