Prof. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy has expressed worry over the growing rate of cyber-attacks across the globe, especially in the country.
Pantami said this at the opening of a two-day International Workshop on Cyber-security and Digitalisation, organized by the Africa Centre of Excellence on Technology Enhanced Learning (ACETEL), the technology unit of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).
The workshop is being organized by ACETEL in partnership with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and CEA-SMIA.
Represented by Prof. Sahalu Junaidu, the minister said that more malware was being launched on daily basis, more than ever before.
Malware is software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.
“The resulting damages of cyber-attacks are not only increasing but are unfortunately projected to cost the loss of approximately 5.2 trillion dollars across the globe by 2023.
“Cybercrime is one of the challenges resulting from the internet and is a great threat to the global economy.
“Cyber-security ventures expect global cybercrime costs to grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching 10.5 trillion dollars annually by 2025, up from 3 trillion dollars in 2015.
“This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history and is one of the greatest transfer risks against the drive for innovation and investment,” he said.
According to Pantami, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa record the largest losses to cybercrimes as at 2017.
The minister quoted a Kenya-based cyber-security IT firm, Serianu, as saying that African economies lost about 3.5 billion dollars to cybercrimes as of 2017.
“In that year, annual losses to cybercrimes were estimated for Nigeria at 649 million dollars, and Kenya at 210 million dollars, while South African Banking, Risk Information Centre (SABRIC), said South Africa lost approximately 157 million dollars”.
Pantami also said that the increase in cybercrimes was due to the outbreak of COVID-19 which