Cybersecurity experts have advised businesses in Nigeria to brace for an uptick in cybercrime activities that usually characterise the ember months – September to December.
The experts gave the advice during a webinar themed: “Social Media Savvy: Protecting Yourself from Online Fraud.”
With the holiday shopping season approaching, they warn that cybercriminals are likely to exploit the heightened online transactions, increasing the potential for fraud, phishing attacks, data breaches, and ransomware.
Nigerian businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), are urged to fortify their cybersecurity measures to protect themselves from the growing threat.
Navigating social media threat
Explaining the various tricks hackers adopt and measures to protect the public from loosing their funds to the cyber criminal, Chief Information Security Officer of FirstBank, Mr Harrison Nnaji, said that social media had become different things to different people, adding that, it was wealth creation opportunity for some and tears for victims of fraud.
He explained the concept of cyber security and online fraud; common types of online frauds on social media, steps to adopt when an account is breached and best safety methods on social media.
He warned against too much information sharing on social media and having too many platforms, saying two or three social media handles should be enough.
He added that some people get involved with too many social media platforms that some times they forget where they had deposited their personal information.
Nnaji warned against freebies which usually lured victims, adding that scams will continue until people take measures to guide against hacks.
He said that the cost of recovery of loses were usually as huge as cost of the funds lost, leading to several people ignoring legal or other actions against the cyber criminals.
“if you do 10% of what you have heard today, there are chances that you will go through this season without a single loss to cyber criminals,” he said.
Preventive measures
Also speaking, the Manager and Data Protection Officer, Information Security and Governance, Risk and Control, Advisory at Digital Encode Ltd., Ifeoma Okoh, explained how cyber thieves move with new technologies.
She listed common scams to include investments scams, dating, jobs, prize and lottery, accounts take over, click jacking, phishing, social engineering, among others.
She urged business owners to always validate links to clarify that they were not phishing or email scams while reeling out other measures including two factors authentication across all social media handles.
She urged Nigerians to be wary of urgent request, and called for timely and regular updates of devices; education to update knowledge in addition to constant monitoring of accounts across social media handles.
What you should know
Recent data from the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) also confirmed there has always been a surge in frauds across Nigerian banks in the last quarter of the year.
For instance, in Q4 2023, FITC’s data shows that Nigerian banks lost a total of N2.09 billion, a 77.58% increase compared with N1.18 billion lost by the banks in Q3 2024.
