The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has implored organizations and telecoms service providers to use next-generation authentication for protecting their cyberspace as against the username-password authentication system.
The commission added that the use of password is vulnerable to hacking and all forms of cyber attacks. Speaking during the 87th edition of the telecom consumer parliament (TCP) held in Lagos, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, urged telecoms service providers operating in Nigeria to strengthen their cyber-risk protection systems and architecture.
He said mobile network operators also need to educate their consumers, regardless of their sizes and scopes of operations and equip them with tips they need to get protected while using the internet on their networks. He disclosed that the commission has “set in motion, the process of establishing an industry code of practice in accordance with our mandate to regulate the communications sector in Nigeria as enshrined in the Nigerian Communications Act 2003.
The code is to protect the right of Internet users to an Open Internet.” In his address on ‘Challenges of Cybercrime: The Role of The Telecoms Service Providers’, Danbatta x-rayed the different cybercrimes in Nigeria as spamming, SIM card frauds, credit card frauds, ATM frauds, cyber bullying, and identity theft, among others. He noted that cyberspace has become a blossoming haven for cybercriminals to perpetrate their insidious acts which, according to him, have continued to cost unsuspecting internet users and many organizations billions of naira in lost money and revenue.
