An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) security expert and government policy affairs advocate, Dr Chukwuemeka Ujam, has advocated for the need to be wary of the human factor in technological inconsistencies.
Speaking at the Vanguard/Economic forum series’, Fintech: Cybersecurity and Fraud Summit 2023, he stressed that the first step to tackling fraud is understanding that humans are sometimes the weakest link on the technology chain.
“Many institutions just want to hit back and lay blame on the customer and that’s not fair. There are laws, but how many of these laws have been adequately tested in the law courts?
“What we should realise is that there’s always a willing participant in the fraud ecosystem, for instance, when you receive a call from a number you don’t know asking you to send a number that just came into your Whatsapp…we may laugh about this but they still find so many victims, and that’s why they’re still successful.”
He, however, pointed out that if caution is exercised, the potential victim can identify signs before the attack. “There are always telltale signs to look out for. When an image or address is created, it is ‘easy’ to tell if it is fake. Also, remember that if it is good to be true, it is definitely false. There usually is an encryption channel when dealing with financial services like tokenization and so on, to secure conversations and transactions. When making a payment, ensure it is an HTTPS address, and hover around email addresses to ensure it is what you should be expecting.”
While he praised the FinTech space in Nigeria for its level of advancement, he said that collaboration between institutions will curb the excesses. He noted that having a platform where people can report fraudulent activities anonymously is paramount.
“Operators are being hit everywhere and sadly, the government just thinks, ‘let’s just make money off these people’. They see technology as thriving and instead of helping, they find a way of taxing everyone and making sure they don’t succeed. I think we’re getting it wrong with this approach; we should develop places where people can come and test their technology or anti-fraud project and so on; because what happens is, we are by and large, more reactionary.
“The thief has come into the premises, and then we start crying. Why don’t we prevent the thief from coming in? Thieves are always a step ahead of all of us. Abroad, if you’re caught as a hacker, the security services take you in and utilize your skills; we should do the same here. We should harness that skill set; keep them in places where they can churn out ideas and technology to be ahead of hackers and fraudsters,” he added.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then