CYBER SECURITY IN NIGERIA?

CYBER SECURITY IN NIGERIA
IS IT RAMPERT IN OUR ECONOMY IN THIS MODERN TIME?

It’s no news on the alarming increase of cybercrime rate in the web this few years. In the past,
various measures have been taken to reduce the rate at which scammer, fraudsters and hackers
exploit the web page and thankfully, as technology develop day by day and it has gotten more helpful. Advanced techniques have been taken in securing the global web. This doesn’t entirely
depend on the developers alone but on website users too. It’s really delightful to realize people in this modern world have knowledge on how to protect their devices and themselves from the
internet breaches without having to depend on other people to do it for them. However, what’s cyber security in Nigeria and what are the steps taken in controlling it?
It’s no news on the increase in cybercrimes in Nigeria and it seems to be growing drastically
every day starting from viruses to experienced hackers and fraudsters. Nigeria however ranked
43 in EMEA and ranked third among ten nations that commits cyber-crime in the world.
To the thought of most people, no serious measure have been taken to control this experienced cunning
people but wait? Have there? Do you think the government will find routes in getting control of
their actions or do you think the criminal actions on people’s identity will remain the same?
Associations of Cyber Security however have been set up to take control of this actions by the government. NCI (National Cyber Security Initiative) and NCWG (Nigerian Cybercrime
Working Group). The NCWG however wasn’t really a success due to the fact that its duty in meeting up with the objectives of NCI was not a success.
Reasons for increase in Cybercrime in Nigeria however is due to unemployment and for fun.
This could be controlled if the government penalizing those involve and also find a means in creating employment to unemployed youths in the country who might not have the time to be a nuisance to people’s identity or to actually defraud one of their hard earned money.

Now since measures in controlling cybercrime isn’t as advanced and popular as it is in the united
states and other highly developed countries, what are ways we can protect ourselves as individuals. That’s really simple.

1) Try as much as possible to be careful with people you give your private details to or with people you contact:

 It so obvious these days, we want to get to meet new people or find
that quickest way to make money. Yes, it’s okay but I am telling you not everyone has
good intentions for you. People you meet every day on social media or physically have
various things running through their mind about you. Be careful with who you meet for
jobs or visa or scholarship because they might not actually have the intention to help you.

The best way to confirm if it’s fraud or not is by looking for consumer reviews,
confirming from friends around and also checking their details thoroughly. If there is anything fishy, then please that’s a good sign. About making cash quick online, this doesn’t really sound as simple as it looks. For you to make this cash with them you still have to work hard for it and meet their expectations. There is no such thing as making money as quickly as possible except it could be fraud because everything still had to
involve lots of work and patience and also validity.

2) Do not download contents from suspicious websites: Some websites are mainly malware, adware etc. It is best you research on best websites to download the content you want.

3) Avoid suspicious links: There are some links that are suspicious. Try as much as possible
to avoid them.

4) Avoid spam and phising messages.

5) Be clearful with ad links you click on. Some of them redirects to suspicious links. Links
that end with .exe, links that links to an IP address etc.

6) Do not download suspicious apps on your phones: There are some apps that are way to obvious they are from the malware family. Just reading customer reviews on them is way too easy to fish them out. Also beware, when reading consumer reviews be really smart
about it. This guys do well to pay people to actually comment good reviews for them, so try and confirm from your friends or family members who must have used it. However, let’s say we downloaded a suspicious app unknowingly and now what’s that red alert that
shows it’s actually something you should get rid of as soon as you suspect.
Here are signs of suspicious apps:

1) They ask for permissions not required: Yep! This one. Did you just download a karaoke
app and they ended up asking you for permission to access your contacts or permission to
access your messages or phone call? Alright, Hold it there! What do they actually need it for? Why should I let them access it? Do they want my contacts to see me sing? Or they actually want to steal my details? Well, I have been a victim of cybercrime and to be genuine about this, it had really pissed me off. It got be wiser not to fall for just the beauty of the apps I download and to be extra careful on the reviews on them. Let’s use a game for example, a game shouldn’t ask for permission to use for camera or permission
to read your messages unless there is a special features in the game that needs it but what exactly can it be anyways?

2) They become clingy and unstable: Ok! You’ve gotten this app and it begins to act
suspicious. You notice it begins to shut down on its own or it sends irrelevant ads on your
phone which you never permitted in the first place or they never stated in the description
of the app. It is really slow in loading and to get just a task done takes forever!

3) Your phone becomes slows and shut down on its own: This can be caused due to irrelevant stuffs being stored on your phone from the app. The app begins to have larger cache than it should maybe. It’s just a gaming app of small size and it has about 1GB of cache. That’s really large. Let’s imagine you have 5 of this same type of app on your
phone. Your phone will surely not be able to bear this.

4) You find other suspicious apps on your phone you didn’t download: If you find other
type of app you didn’t download on your phone and it never came with the phone, this is
a sign that something is wrong. There might be times when you uninstall this apps and it comes back. One of the tricks I used was to update my phone and I tell you, the apps never came back again. This was serious to the extent that when I actually uninstalled the main mother app, this crazy apps still came up.

5) The suspicious app refused to uninstall:
 If you discover the app you installed refused to
uninstall, something might be actually wrong. There are some apps that need special
permissions. You could check it out on internet on ways to uninstall such apps. If it never
worked, then I guess you should format your phone.

6) The suspicious app saves your passwords or credit card details: Yes! This gets bad to the
extent this suspicious app saves your credit card and confidential details without your
permission. Be really careful about it.

7) The app constantly updates and there is just nothing new being added to the app. The app
only gets worse

8) The app doesn’t even bother to open at all or worst still, you didn’t find the app on your
phone. Some apps are smart to the extent they attach themselves to another apps and
don’t work on their own.

9) Other apps on your phone acts strange as soon as you install this app: If you installed an
app, and few days later your Firefox begins to open by itself or its home page changes to
something suspicious or your keyboard presses by itself, that’s an obvious sign you
downloaded a terrible app. Ways of getting rid of is effect is formatting your phone
entirely. (My opinion though)

10) The app is just not what you expect: You might download an app and realize it isn’t what you expert. So many things are just too different in the app than in the advertisement.
That’s also a sign.

Hope this helped. Comment down on what you think of the post? What are others ways you
think we can use to protect the cyberspace?