Rising Cyber Terrorism Spreads Panic in Nigeria

The rise and rise of cyber attacks on organizations suggest that Nigeria now face even more perilous times than the activities of the Boko Haram, the dreaded Islamist sect, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations have shown.

Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Nigeria Police Force, Defence headquarters and many other sensitive public and private websites have been hacked, suggesting that the fight is moving from conventional battlefields into the digital world.

The potential threat posed by cyber-terrorism has provoked considerable alarm.

The attacks are the new face of terrorism but now taken to the internet and it is what is commonly known as cyber-terrorism.

It is hacking or attack of networks and computers to obtain or modify information for political and/or social objectives or rather, a way to quickly and easily distribute propaganda and get a lot of attention drawn to it.

Cyber-terrorism include acts of deliberate, large-scale disruption of computer networks, especially of personal computers attached to the Internet, by the means of tools such as computer viruses.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab, a leading computer security firm warned that a new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal log in information for social networking sites, email and instant messaging.

Numerous security experts have pointed to the dangers of cyber-terrorists hacking into government and private computer systems and crippling the military, financial, and service sectors of advanced economies.

Peter Iwuegbu, an ICT security expert said that cyber-terrorism is clear and present danger and that Nigeria need to wake up.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that by crippling a country’s economy, a cyber terrorist can also potentially weaken the country for a military attack.

The Monterey Group, a premium cyber security consulting firm for performance-oriented public and private sector clients said there are three levels of cyber-terror capability.  

The first is simple-unstructured- the capability to conduct basic hacks against individual systems using tools created by someone else. The organization possesses little target analysis, command and control, or learning capability.

There is also advanced-structured- the capability to conduct more sophisticated attacks against multiple systems or networks and possibly, to modify or create basic hacking tools.

The organization possesses an elementary target analysis, command and control, and learning capability.

Elsewhere, there is the complex-coordinated- the capability for coordinated attacks capable of causing mass-disruption against integrated, heterogeneous defenses (including cryptography) – ability to create sophisticated hacking tools and highly capable target analysis, command and control, and organization learning capability.

Only recently, Oracle Corp and Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), an indigenous IT conglomerate warned that the cashless regime may by hampered by cyber threats if adequate safe guards are not put in place.

The companies said that this can be achieved by deploying best-in-class IT security solutions that can protect network and their databases from external intrusions and attacks.

James Agada, chief executive officer, ExpertEdge, said: “If we believe that we are prone to having more attacks as we drive further our cashless policy initiative, we should be prepared.

Today we are talking of e-commerce and cashless economy, which implies that the volume and value of information that you have increase. And because it has monetary value, the data are likely to be targeted by hackers and this can rob an organization several millions and billions of naira.”

But nearly half of firms globally are not prepared for cyber threats on their networks; a research by B2B International in conjunction with security company Kaspersky Lab has shown.

According to the research, while firms recognise the threat from cyber crime, over 40% are not actively engaged in protecting themselves from an attack.

“According to the survey, in 41% of cases the answer is ‘no’ – corporate infrastructure lacks the necessary protection to handle online attacks,” Kaspersky Lab said.