Nigeria moves to strengthen cyber security

Nigeria has inaugurated a committee to implement the national cyber security strategy, a move targeted at ensuring an effective management of cyber threats, according to an official statement made available to Xinhua on Thursday.

The objective of the committee includes raising awareness among the Nigerian citizens on the need to protect against cyber threats, the use of encryption and human and institutional capacity building, among others, said the statement issued by Isa Patanmi, director-general of the National Informational Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

"There are numerous ills in the society arising from the misuse and abuse of access to the tools of Information Technology," the statement noted while explaining the scale and dimension of these threats had compelled the government to develop and implement a new cybersecurity strategy for the country.

The committee, also expected to coordinate, cooperate by way of sharing information and maintaining a better and up-to-date IT security management systems, was drawn from Nigeria's Ministry of Communications; the Office of the National Security Adviser; NITDA, Nigerian Postal Service; Nigerian Computer Society and the Nigerian Communication Satellite, among others.

Out of about 97 million internet users in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, about 14 percent suffer cyber attacks, the statement said, adding the statistics of cyber crimes had necessitated the setting up of the committee.

Nigeria ranked as the 17th most attacked nation in the world in December 2015, based on threat intelligence drawn from Check Point Software Technologies, according to global payment giant, Paypal.com.

Government websites, also, have often been reportedly hacked as cyber security threats continue to grow in the West African nation.

A total of 585 government-owned websites were among the 2,175 Nigerian websites hacked in 2015, the Office of the National Security Adviser said recently. Endit