NITDA is working on a defence mechanism to protect you against cyber threats

folarin okunola

June 29, 2017 5:48 PM

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has directed its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to develop a cyber defense mechanism.

New NITDA DG, Isa Ali Pantami

Cyber attacks have been on the rise across the globe and Nigeria (with a near non-existent cybersecurity setup) is vulnerable to these attacks. Much more so than other countries.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) seems aware of this (about time) and has directed its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to develop a cyber defense mechanism for Nigeria.

NITDA DG, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami made this known in a statement citing the recent ‘Petya’ cyber attack which has spread all over the globe crippling entire computer systems and rendering them inaccessible.

“While our CERT team are working round the clock along with other stakeholders to come up with effective defence mechanism for the Nigerian cyberspace, we are calling on Network Administrators in the public and private sectors as well as individuals to take the following measures recommended during the recent WannaCry attack: isolate the system from your network to prevent the threat from further spreading; remove the system from Network; and do not use flash/pen drive, external drives on the System to copy files to other systems,” he said, according to a Nigeria CommunicationsWeek report.

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While the “efforts” of NITDA to find a working security solution for Nigeria’s cyberspace is laudable in itself, it also begs the question as to why it has taken this long for something like this to be in the works.

This is not the first time cyber attacks are happening on a global scale. This is also not the first time the integrity of Nigeria’s cyber space has been called to question.

Year after year, reports and studies show that hackers, fraudsters and all kinds of criminal elements have taken advantage of the country’s lax cybersecurity infrastructure. Why has not been done before now?

There are no concrete details as regards what NITDA is doing exactly as far as securing Nigeria’s cyberspace is concerned. That means there is no timeline for a basic, secure cybersecurity setup. Hopefully, NITDA accelerates the process and a long-term solution is found soon.

What do you think can be done to protect Nigeria’s cyberspace? Let us know in the comments section below.

folarin okunola