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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has partnered with some cybersecurity stakeholders to launch a new cyber awareness campaign tagged, ‘#NoGoFallMaga’.
This was disclosed by the apex bank through its Director of Banking Supervision, Mr Haruna Mustafa, on Monday.
According to him, cybersecurity awareness was a key element in mitigating cyber risk and the bank was ready to partner with industry stakeholders to sustain efforts at educating staff and customers on fraud information and cybersecurity hygiene practices.
He said, “It would also be beneficial to the industry if banks extend their cybersecurity awareness programme to their customers using various media in Nigerian languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa, among others, for an improved ecosystem. Another area of focus is driving and integrating awareness programme into the Nigerian education system.”
He explained that the present generation of students was practically born with technology in their hands, noting that cybersecurity must be an integral part of their education.
Mustafa said students, teachers, and administrators all need access to the learning tools necessary to understand, detect and avoid cyber threats they might encounter in their daily activities.
“To this end, the CBN is ready to partner with industry stakeholders to develop an awareness programme that can be integrated into the education system in Nigeria to create a security culture for citizens from childhood,” he said.
Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of the Nigeria Financial Industry (CCISONFI) and Cybersafe Foundation (CSF) are the partners of CBN in the initiative.
CCISONFI Chairman, Abumere Igboa, said, “This initiative looks at tackling cybercrime that poses a threat to customers and the Nigerian citizenry in conducting reliable and safe financial services.
Although the use of digital platforms has transformed the cyber and technology landscape, it also has its own risk, especially with sustaining trust in customers ability to transact securely within the financial ecosystem,”
Igboa said that a loss of such trust and confidence could undermine the benefits of CBN’s cashless economy or the ability to continually leverage technology.
He added that there was a constant need to address the related challenges of ensuring continuous cybersecurity and data privacy.
“We have also realised that only through concerted efforts by financial industry stakeholders and ensuring our customers remain cyberware, can we then eliminate or take measures to reduce the activities of cybercriminals,” Igboa added.
Confidence Staveley, Executive Director of Cybersafe Foundation, said the partnership would enable them to join forces to reach the 40 million Nigerians who currently access financial services across the country.
“This will also help in raising mass cybersecurity awareness and consequently reduce the success rate of cyberfraud attacks on customers. There is clearly a need to include an aggressive cybersecurity awareness campaign to compliment other proactive and reactive measures being taken to curb cyberfraud.
“However, we must collaborate across the financial eco-system, consolidate resources, strengths and reach across the aisle to sectors like the media for support to drive cybersecurity awareness for significant impact,” Staveley said.
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