NSA Lists Dangers Of Cybercrime

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), said on Tuesday in Abuja that cyber crime had negatively impacted on the image and economies of Africa.

Dasuki, who was represented by Director of Communication, Office of the NSA, Ambassador Haruna Mohammed, said this at the presentation of the “Draft Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Blueprint for Nigeria’’.

PKI is a collection of security technologies, procedures, processes and policies that collectively provide a framework for addressing, using cryptography, the fundamental security issues of piracy, authentication, integrity, non-repudiation and access control in data communication.

Dasuki said the availability of a trust worthy mechanism for authentication of identity, integration of electronic information, non-repudiation of actions and security of information, were key requirements in development of interactive services between public administration and customers.

He described PKI as a foundation for secured electronic commerce, Internet security, security-authentication, encryption and repudiation.

“In view of the daunting challenges caused by the incessant telecom and regulated crimes in Nigeria, the need to effectively curtail and mitigate the current security challenges associated with the use of Internet and other electronic communication devises cannot be over emphasised.

“Cyber crime incidences and statistics and figures from some African countries, most particularly, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa have damaging impact on images and economies of these countries.

“Nigeria is equated to be one of the leading cyber crime perpetrators in the world. There is today, increasing dependence on computer systems and networks in Nigeria- citizen, government and businesses to run critical services.

“The ease with which these systems can be compromised to the detriment of all cannot be ignored. ’’

Dasuki said it necessitated the Federal Government to initiate some strong measures, through his office, to protect infrastructure that have impact on the nation’s economic development and collective security.

These infrastructures, according to him, include computer systems, networks and all critical infrastructures.

“Some of these measures include the establishment of a full functional national digital and forensic laboratory in the office of the NSA. This avail the security agencies a platform for detail investigation into cybercrime in the country.

“Two, the establishment of a national Computer Emergency Response Centre for the management detection, response and analysis of all activities in the Nigeria service place.

“Work on search centre has already begun in earnest and scheduled to be completed before the end of this year.

‘Three, as some of you may already be aware, the office of the NSA, drafted a comprehensive Security Bill in 2011, which have been forwarded to the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice for review and transition to the National Assembly as executive bill after consideration by Federal Executive Council.’’

Dasuki congratulated the National Information Technology for developing the PKI for the country, saying that the implementation would go a long way to enhance security in the country.

He, however, stressed that PKI should not been seen as replacing all other security technology, rather as a complementary means to achieving security in the country.

“PKI is another tool, which is security architecture that has been introduced to provide increased level of confidence for exchanging information over increasingly insecure internet.’’

Dasuki urged the stakeholders to deliberate on issues on integration of PKI companies, application managements, digital certificate, ensuring capability and getting users to key into the PKI.