A security expert and a university don, Dr Ngboawaji Daniel Nte has expressed concern over the rising activities of internet fraudsters who swindle unsuspecting victims to make cheap money.

In an interview with The Tide last Tuesday, Dr Nte said the alarming practice of internet fraudsters was quite disturbing and dangerous to the growth of the economy.

The security expect listed the latest internet fraudulent acts hacking into peoples e-mails, changing of the person’s passwords and ultimate hijacking of the mails with the criminal intention of impersonating the original owner of the address of the e-mail.

He narrated a story whereby his e-mail was hacked by an impersonator  who scanned his mail in the box and sent it out to all his friends and associates all over the world without his consent, and solicited for help to save him from a dire situation in Cotonou, the Benin Republic.

The security expert who also narrated his ordeal at the hands of a Port Harcourt resident, said he has been receiving countless calls to verity the apparent SOS mail purportedly sent out by the impersonator.

He lamented that the activities of the fraudsters have crippled his e-mail, making it inaccessible to all his contacts and research materials he had gathered for six years.

“I am presently devastated because of the dent on my reputation and the loss of my valuable documents in my e-mail box,” he added.

The university don attributed the desperation of young Nigerians engaged in internet fraud to unemployment and the materialistic sub-culture prevalent in the Nigerian society, noting that “we have a society where sudden wealth is celebrated instead of being queried as in other societies”.

He advised Nigerians and the various relevant authorities concerned to be weary of the trend to save themselves from similar devastating experience.

He advocated the need to set up an efficient cyber security modernism to protect Nigerians from internet criminal tendencies.