Okereafor, Nigerian Makes History with Book on ‘Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic’

Kenneth Okereafor, a United Nations trained cybersecurity and biometric expert, has made history with Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic, the first book to demystify Cybersecurity concepts using real-world cybercrime incidents from the pandemic.

Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic, due to be to be formally released on March 17, 2021, is published by CRC Press, UK, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, US.

The book illustrates how threat actors perpetrated computer fraud against valuable information assets particularly healthcare, financial, commercial, travel, academic, and social networking data.

Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic, also simplifies the socio-technical aspects of Cybersecurity and draws valuable lessons from the impacts COVID-19 cyberattacks exerted on computer networks, online portals, and databases.

The book also predicts the fusion of Cybersecurity into Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics, the two emerging domains that will potentially dominate and redefine post-pandemic Cybersecurity research and innovations between 2021 and 2025.

The book’s primary audience is individual and corporate cyberspace consumers across all professions intending to update their Cybersecurity knowledge for detecting, preventing, responding to, and recovering from computer crimes.

Cybersecurity in the COVID-19 Pandemic is ideal for information officers, data managers, business and risk administrators, technology scholars, Cybersecurity experts and researchers, and information technology practitioners.

Readers will draw lessons for protecting their digital assets from email phishing fraud, social engineering scams, malware campaigns, and website hijacks.

Okereafor, the author is deputy general manager responsible for Database Security at the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Nigeria.

He is with 24 years’ ICT experience spanning industry, government, and academia. He has specialized skills in Threat Mitigation Technologies for preventing, detecting, and responding to Cyberattacks.

Okereafor, is a member of the International Organization for Standardization’s Technical Committee on Health Informatics (ISO-TC-215), and he chairs ISO’s Security and Privacy Working Group-4 in Nigeria developing Cybersecurity standards for digital health.

Okereafor was a key member in developing Nigeria’s eHealth Strategic Framework (2015-2020) in collaboration with the WHO and UN Foundation.

Prior to joining NHIS in 2013, he had extensive data security work experience in telecoms, diplomatic relations, and public sector including the US Department of State where he supported the Biometric security rollout for personnel at the US Embassy in Nigeria.

In addition to advanced Cybersecurity training by ITU, UNESCO, SANS Institute, EC Council, and ISACA, Kenneth holds a PhD in Cybersecurity from Azteca University Mexico, where his research in Biometric Security resulted in the Multi-Modal Random Trait Biometric Liveness Detection System (MMRTBLDS), a framework that improves biometric authentication by diminishing imposter predictability.

Okereafor graduated cum laude and obtained an MSc in Network Security and BSc in Computer Information Systems from American Heritage University of Southern California, and has a first class background in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering.

His research interests centre on Global Cybersecurity, Incident Response, Cyberattack Prevention and Mitigation, Biometric Security, Threat Intelligence, eHealth Security, Telemedicine, and Digital Identities.