Good infrastructure will curb hacking in Nigeria —E-PPAN

Chief Executive Officer, E-Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN), Mrs Onajite Regha, has urged the Federal Government to invest more in infrastructure that support electronic payments.

Regha said in Lagos last week that infrastructure would help to curb challenges faced by online payment for services such as electricity and internet data.

She highlighted the challenges as security, epileptic power supply, interoperability and interconnectivity of networks, resistance from target customers and weak risk framework.

Regha identified lack of unique identifier for customers across institutions and high operation cost, low level of card usage on Point of Sales (POS), as part of the problems faced by electronic means of payment.

“The first step is to identify the major challenges facing electronic online payments in Nigeria.

“To deal with these challenges, Nigeria as a country needs to invest more in infrastructure that support payment for example, power and data.

“Over the years, we have seen that as technology evolved, it has created a loophole for hackers to breach unsecured systems,” Regha said.

She noted that more customers still need to be educated to appreciate the convenience of e-payment and to create awareness about fraud and online security tips.

Regha said that hackers were very skilful, well-funded, organised and they use sophisticated technological tools to attack the data base of their targets.

Regha said that billions of naira had been siphoned from corporate organisations and individuals making it a lucrative business.

“When you look closely at hacking, you will see it is part of a bigger picture of cybercrime. Cyber security threat is real as many have lost money through ATM and internet banking,” she said.

Regha said that the fraud report by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics in 2015 showed a transaction volume that grew by 43.36 per cent representing a significant increase compared to 2014.

She said that the statistics showed that hackers had become bold, sophisticated and resilient in their attack.