ITSSP Warns INEC, Others on Socio-Political Motivated Phishing

Information technology security experts have warned that both the public and private organizations, especially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must work to be ahead of cyber criminals.

The Information Technology Systems and Security Professionals (ITSSP), the Infotech security group of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) who gathered in Lagos last week, expressed worry with the level of unsecured IT environments among government establishments and identified INEC’s voters database as the most malicious attack target.  

INEC had at the wake of the issuance of permanent voters card (PVC) across the country in November said that several Nigerians who registered during the voters’ registration exercise in 2011, and were given temporary registration cards, could not collect their PVC, because their captured details had either been wiped out of INEC database, or they are facing logistics challenges in collecting the cards.

Mr. Tope Aladenusi, partner, Akintola Williams Deloitte, said that phishing and inside threats will continue to be the biggest cyber threats in Nigeria, especially as the oil price continues to fall.

“One other trend we foresee in the coming year is that cyber attacks that are politically and socially motivated are likely to increase, especially with the elections that are coming in 2015.

Also,  Mr. Chris Uwaje, past president of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), the country should be working towards “Threats Conversion”, where a database can be developed for luring the skillful and ethical geniuses among the hackers for national development.

“Most of the things we are talking about, with specific reference to Nigeria, are insider abuse. Global statistics shows that 17% abuses are internally generated. The significance example is Edward Snowden who took a chunk of his former employer’s data from a much secured site. That is prevalent in Nigeria today. A lot of money is being lost and people are keep quite because it was as a result of insider abuse” Uwaje said.

Nodding in agreement, Mr. Wilfred Mamah from Accenture, said, “What we have seen is pockets of tools within organizations. For instance, if you go to a bank, you will see an internal control team on their own, information security beat following the other way; so, there is no consolidated view happening even within that organization.

Earlier, Mr, Rogba Adeoye, president of ITSSP berated the nation’s authorities for neglecting IT professionals while taking decisions on data security and management.

Adeoye said that Nigeria ought not to experience such ugly situation like loss of data that has to do with simple electronic registration, after millions of naira has been appropriated for such projects.