IT Firm Tasks Businesses On Cyber Security

L-R: Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, representative of the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mrs Amina Zakari and Member Board of the Electoral Institute, Prince Adedeji Soyebi, at the 12th Electoral Institute Public Lecture on “ICT and Electronic Voting: Issues and Challenges” in Abuja recently.

The President of MAXUT
Consulting, Mr Michael Odusami, has urged businesses and the banking sector to ensure the safety of their online transactions.
Odusami gave the advice during the “Cyber Security and Banking Fraud Summit 2016’’ held in Lagos.
The summit was organised by MAXUT Consulting, an Information Technology (IT) firm in collaboration with Vasco, an Authentication Company.
He said that online fraud level was increasing; hence, authentication of the online transaction identity had become much important.
According to him, the recent trend is that customers’ interactions with the banks are changing, thereby interacting more through electronic payment systems like the ATM and POS, among others.
“People want to do things more online. The statistics now is that people visit the bank branch just one to two times per year.
“They visit the ATM about three to five times per month; call centres five to 10 times per month; and use the desktop about seven to 10 times per month.
“And use the mobile phone to do transactions for 20 to 30 times per month,’’ he said.
Odusami said that mobile threats were real, as 60 per cent of mobile phone malware were specifically targeted at financial information on the devices, as there were security issues with mobile phones.
He noted that the security challenges continued to increase through the rise of financial technology-driven providers entering the financial arena for simple financial services, enabled by digital revolution.
“With more financial services being offered via the web, mobile will increase the target surface of cyber threats and frauds,” the MAXUT president said.
According to him, one of the increasing fraud risks and threats facing the banks is the insiders’ link, which is inimical to any cyber security defence.
The Area Sales Manager Banking, France, Luxembourg, Africa, Mr Nicolas Poire, said that mobile was the epicentre of the new banking habits.
Poire said that customers’ interactions were increasingly moving to mobile platform and the banking market was looking for frictionless and passwordless for authentication.
He said that there was the need to balance security with users’ convenience.