Senate Committee Moves to Address Cybercrime, Engages Datasixth on Capacity Building

Emma Okonji

The Senate Committee on ICT and Cybersecurity has stressed the need for more education and re-orientation about the danger of cybercrime on developing nations like Nigeria.

The committee is of the view that Nigerian youths need to be more sensitized against the growing influence of cybercrimes in Nigeria.

To achieve this, the committee said it would engage the services of Datasixth, a cybersecurity organisation, on capacity training and sensitisation.

The Senate Committee made the disclosure during its recent visit to Datasixth in Lagos. The team comprised the Technical Assistant, Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime, Patrick Essien; Committee Technical Manager, Senator Orker Jeff; Committee Chairman on ICT and Cybercrime, Senator Yakubu Oseni; member of the committee, Senator Ibrahim Hadejia and Senate Clerk on ICT and Cybercrime, Ayoh Ogon.

Speaking on behalf of the team, Hadejia said it was the Committee’s second visit to Datasixth, and noted that some of the biggest challenges in the Information Technology (IT) world today, were insecurity and vulnerability, among others.

Hadejia said companies like Datasixth are coming up to solve the challenges, especially in the financial sector, banks, fintechs, oil and gas and companies that are vulnerable to attacks by hackers.

He said because the IT sector globally had become very dynamic, since things keep changing with various innovation coming up almost on a daily basis, “it has also been discovered that cyber crooks too are not relenting, launching various attacks, from ransomware today, to malware tomorrow, and Trojan  on another day. So, in tackling this menace, it is best to leave it to the professionals, who are dedicated to being a step above those hackers and cybercriminals.”

According to him, since the advent of the present government, there has been a lot of transition to digital economy.

Hadejia said there cannot be a digital economy without having a digitised government services. “Now, if you are going to digitise government services, the first thing that people would be scared of is vulnerability. Just like you have in the private sector, the same criminals would operate on that space in the public sector. So, we are talking to companies like Datasixth to come in and see how they can help government plan initial infrastructure to make it fool proof and secure as possible.”

He revealed that government’s plan to move 85 per cent of its businesses online by 2023, may not be met, but stressed that Nigeria would definitely get there. 

“So in order to put security at the centre, we are meeting with companies like DataSixth to see how they can come in, interface with government agencies like Galaxy Backbone, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) among others, to address insecurity in the country,” Hadejia said.

CEO, DataSixth, Michael Nathan, urged the federal government to provide cybersecurity that would contribute positive digital transformative changes in projecting the country as one of the pioneers and sponsors of cyber resilience.  

“Cybercrime has already emerged as a very concrete threat, not only in Nigeria but the globe at large. Technology innovation often means a wider surface area for attack. Given that cyberattacks are here to stay and officially becoming the fastest growing crime in the world, there is urgent need to address it,” Nathan said.

According to him, human factor remains the single most important part of fighting cybercrime, given that 90 per cent of incidents are occurring due to human behaviour. “We may not beat cyberattackers for good – but public sector leaders can start to swing the balance back in their favour,” Nathan further said.