“Nigeria Must Step Up Cybersecurity Ahead of Broadband Revolution,” The Guardian Nigeria News

To ensure the maximum impact of the new National Broadband Plan (NNBP 2020-2025), Nigeria needs to pay adequate attention to cybersecurity issues.

The need to ensure closer cyberspace in Nigeria became necessary after online activity was expected to increase as a result of the implementation of the NNBP.

With the NNBP, Nigeria has already set its sights on broadband penetration of 70 percent (currently 42.9 percent) by 2025.

The new broadband plan is expected to provide data download speeds in Nigeria of at least 25 Mbps in urban areas and 10 Mbps in rural areas. By 2025, at least 90 percent of the population will have effective coverage at a cost of at most N390 per N available 1 GB of data.

At a webinar on National Broadband Development and Cybersecurity, entitled National Broadband Development and Cybersecurity: Problems, Opportunities, and Challenges, organized by the Nigeria Academy of Engineering (NAE), experts gathered to discuss the topic, noted that mandate all stakeholders to make a conscious effort to balance the security, social and economic needs of cyberspace with cybersecurity as the country implements the strategic measures and the national potential to ensure continued use of the country’s cyberspace aims to unleash the needs of government, industry, academia and the international community.

Guest speaker Tope Aladenusi, head of Cyber ​​Risk Services at Deloitte West Africa, said the impact of cyber criminals cannot be overstated. He announced that cybercrime lost $ 1 trillion worldwide in 2020.

Recalling 2020, he said the year had fundamentally changed life and the world, and the globe had to adjust to the new normal “work from anywhere” that increased reliance on Internet and broadband both inside and outside Nigeria have brought.

Aladenusi said broadband penetration is still in the works in Nigeria, but that doesn’t mean it is inaccessible.

According to him, the benefits of broadband are enormous, including the ability to create jobs; diversifies the economy and promotes GDP growth; enables improvements in education, health care and other social services; stimulates innovation; improves public safety.

According to Aladenusi, opportunities that should be explored due to broadband development are a huge increase in data collection rate that would increase the accuracy of AI and ML tools. increased speed in the detection of attacks and warning systems; Easily enforce and review compliance with security standards, laws, and regulations, and invest more in cybersecurity research and development.

However, Aladenusi said that as broadband development and penetration increases, there are also increased risks. He said the prevalence of cybercrime would increase.

According to him, cybercriminal tactics often play with human weaknesses and are easy to implement. He pointed out that there are no physical and geographical boundaries in cyberspace, so there is room for vulnerability and there are limited skilled resources for cybersecurity.

He revealed that cyber risk affects everyone in the broadband value chain, including equipment providers, content providers, carrier / internet service provider, handset, application, service provider and customers.

The Deloitte boss listed common cyber attacks / threats including phishing, smishing and vishing. Business Email Compromise; Ransomware and malware attacks, denial-of-service attacks, etc.

According to Deloitte, Aladenusi revealed the outlook for cybersecurity in Nigeria in 2021 and said there will be a sharp surge in deep counterfeiting. Signature-based antivirus will become extinct in many organizations. Phishing attacks will continue to prevail. You will be bigger, better, and braver. Cybersecurity is becoming essential to business survival and that is where Nigeria will take center stage.

According to him, the benefits of having an established cyber security program will be to increase trust in online services. Increase in profit margins due to reduced malicious activity on the network; Increasing cyber resilience; Reputational and brand benefits, as well as reducing the cost of handling complaints, instructions, and legal resources.

In order for Nigerians to be able to protect themselves, Aladenusi recommended that there must be specific cybersecurity initiatives. awareness needs to be increased; There needs to be test security for broadband and there needs to be the ability to develop the ability to recover and recover.

NAE President Alex Ogedengbe said the event was put together by the academy’s ICT committee to ensure the country was adequately prepared, particularly in cybersecurity, for the broadband revolution.