'Nigeria loses N129 billion to online identity theft in 13 years' - NITDA DG

folarin okunola

November 27, 2015 4:11 PM

Jack made this known during the national Cybersecurity Policy Capacity Workshop organized by Microsoft Nigeria in conjunction with the Office of the National Security Adviser to the President

Mr. Peter Jack, suspended NITDA DG.

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Peter Jack, has said that Nigeria has lost about N129 billion to online identity theft.

Jack made this known during the national Cybersecurity Policy Capacity Workshop organized by Microsoft Nigeria in conjunction with the Office of the National Security Adviser to the President in Abuja.

The NITDA DG explained that the loss was incurred in the last 13 years from 2000 to 2013 via the defacement of over 2,000 websites across the country, 585 of which belong to various government agencies.

‘‘There has been a loss of about N129bn in the last 13 years from 2000 to 2013 in terms of online scam and identity theft due to defacement of different websites. There is a recorded 2,175 websites that have been defaced in terms of web defacement, and among them, 585 are actually government websites, including Lagos state government,” Jack said according to a report by Vanguard via its website.

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‘‘Also available is range of possible attacks on external intrusion through copy rights infringements and unethical IT practices by scammers all the way to insider threats. This is in addition to some statistics of some infringements perpetrated on various online identities,” he added.

Speaking on the contribution of NITDA to the protection of the Nigerian cyberspace, Jack stated that the agency has launched its CERT.NG center to police the cyberspace.

folarin okunola