By CALLISTUS OFFOR, Abuja –
The Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) has resolved to boost trust and confidence in Nigeria’s digital economy by ensuring strict adherence to sound cyber security culture and ethics with various stakeholders.
The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, stated this on Wednesday in his key note address during the 2021 Annual Cybersecurity Conference held in Abuja.
The conference which has the theme: “Building Trust in the Digital Economy through Cybersecurity and Sensitization on the implementation of the National Policy and Strategy”, brought various stakeholders to brainstorm on issues in the nation’s cybersecurity space.
Prof. Danbatta, who was represented by Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management, NCC, Mr Adeleke Adewolu, explained that the recent technological advancement in the country’s cyberspace has brought about an increased in cyber crimes, identity theft, social media and fake news campaigns which have significantly affected the notion of trust in the digital era.
He added that such trend has amplified various opportunities for vulnerabilities, were malicious contents are quick to be exploited, thereby slowing down the country’s digital economy.
Prof. Danbatta, however, stressed the need for trust and confidence in the country’s digital economy sector, adding that such would promote a healthy digital environment, ensure a global best practice to guarantee the privacy and integrity of digital data.
“To include digital trust and confidentiality, the digital economy should be built on trusting technology. To this end, the recent launch of Nigeria Communication sectorial Cybersecurity incident response team is a testament of our resolve to promote a healthy digital environment in Nigeria”.
“Our various cybersecurity awareness initiatives and campaigns are helping the public understand the risks in digital space and how to reduce the vulnerability opportunities that adversaries can benefit from”.
He further, called on cybersecurity stakeholders to key into the 2021 National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy and accelerate the adoption of the various components in the digital economy policies and strategies.
“Cybersecurity is therefore the collective responsibility that no single government, business or individual can handle alone”, hence the need for collaborative efforts”.
On his part, The National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, told the participants that the NSA is building stronger collaboration with major actors in the security sector to guide the digital economy and beyond.
Represented by The Director of Communications, office of the NSA, Brigadier General Samad Akesode, said several workshops been organised were in line with the vision of the present administration to ensure that issue of security is taken more seriously at all levels, especially at the higher ground.
He commended the the Minister of Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami and the EVC for initiating the Annual Cybersecurity Conference, while describing the idea as apt and timely.
There were goodwill messages from the Director General, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Engineer Aliyu Aziz Abubakar, and Vice-Chancellor, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Prof. Suleiman Bala Mohammed.
Other presentations slated for delivery include, Working remotely: Minimizing vulnerabilities and enhancing safety measures; Threat to Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Potential risks to NIN, BVN etc; 5G: Perspective on potential Cybersecurity challenges; Panel Discussion: Critical Communications Infrastructure: Supply Chain Cybersecurity Threat Landscape and USSD: Vulnerabilities, Threats, Risk and Mitigations.
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