Stakeholders in the information technology security ecosystem have identified capacity challenge as major in the fight against cyber attack in the country and reeled out measures to combat the menace.
Oluseyi Akindeinde, chief technical officer, Digital Encode- Centre for Information Security Intelligence (CISI), said that there are not enough know how amongst the industry practitioners to combat cybercrime.
He explained that most organisations in the country cannot afford preventive measure against hackers.
“For instance, Coreimpact software, which is a tool use by organisations and governments to conduct security checks on their networks cost between $75,000 and $100,000 and the training costing almost the amount is out of reach to many organisations. Presently, there are only two organisations in the country that have this software,” he added.
Another challenge he said is investigation. “There are not too many centres for post mortem analysis of cybercrime in the country that will facilitate forensics investigation. More so, the absence of any sort of legal framework hampers amongst other things cybercrime prosecution. How do you bring a perpetrator to book if there isn’t a legal framework in place,” he said.
He noted that, banks are most susceptible to attacks because they happen to be the low hanging fruit in the cyber security eco system since they house critical customer information and account details. “Anyone who is able to circumvent the security of a banking institution will be on to a gold mine”.
Adding his voice, Chris Uwaje, managing director, Connect Technologies, said that the infrastructure of the Internet does not normally provide an automated mechanism for identifying the true source. “With the deployment of anonymous software, it is increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible to trace cybercriminals. At the same time, other services available in some countries, such as pre-paid calling cards, lend themselves to anonymous communications. All of these technologies make identifying criminals more difficult, even though they have other benefits.
There are countless other technical challenges we face, like those stemming from Internet telephony, strong encryption, and wireless and satellite communications. The technological advances in electronic commerce and communication that have led to the explosive growth of the Internet have also made it possible for international criminals and terrorists to target victims in all our countries in unprecedented ways”.
He added that one of the challenges faced by investigators and prosecutors is in the legal arena.
Deterring and punishing computer criminals require a legal structure that will support detection and successful prosecution of offenders.