CBN’s policy framework to checkmate cybercrimes in banks underway—Bank’s CSOs
Rising from series of both reported and veiled cyber crime and hacking attacks in several Nigerian banks since last two years to date, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has signaled readiness to issue a strategic policy framework that will among other things blacklist cyber crime fraudsters in the banking system, strengthen banking server systems and equip bankers with necessary skills to ward off attacks.
At the end of their one-week Nigerian Financial Sector Global Cyber Security (NFSGCS) Conference held at Transcorp hotel, Calabar, the Chief Security Officers (CSOs) of banks who agreed in the communique that with the Biometric Verification Number (BVN), “The idea is that when the framework comes out from CBN, the BVN will become a major tool to fight fraudsters”.
The conference which attracted mostly Israeli cyber experts and other nationals as trainers gave antidotes to latest cyber attacks and how best to tackle them.
Analysts had long argued that it was due to fear of default capable of opening windows of attacks that all most every bank in Nigeria hosts its server aboard.
The conferees said “Our recommendation from this conference is that it should become an instrument to kick fraudsters out of the banking system. So those who defraud individuals in banks and other customers of banks, once the investigation proves that they are fraudsters, we believe that the other legal consideration will be taken care of by that framework”.
Leader of the CSOs, Mr. Sam Okenye said, such framework “should become a major instrument to kick those guys out of the banking system.”
“What we noted is that low level of security awareness is a major challenge. Some customers divulge their sensitive information to fraudsters unknowingly. They put a call to them pretending to be calling from a bank and because customers have low-level awareness they disclose sensitive information and fall for fraud. So low security awareness is a challenge, which we are going to tackle as an industry, which is part of what we agreed here,” Okenye averred.
