‘Financial data highly prone to cyber attack’

The Managing Director of Arit of Africa, one of the oldest information technology and communications (ICT) firms in Nigeria, Ronke Okeremi, has said that financial data is most prone to cyberattack in the world and therefore, urged business owners to carry out regular vulnerability assessment on their infrastructure to determine threat areas.

She described cyberattack as any risk of financial loss, disruption or damage to the reputation of an organisation, which may arise from some failures of its information technology systems.

While explaining that identity theft has become rampant, she advised organisations that keep identity and financial data to “be on the alert.”

Okeremi also identified the importance of information security system, reiterating that what is crucial to all organisations is “to protect their information” and conduct businesses.

“If the United States of America can be hacked despite its sophisticated global technology fame, then no country is safe.” she said.

Okeremi therefore, advised that businesses should engage in frequent and proactive vulnerability assessment on their infrastructure in order to determine threat areas.

“There are solutions that offer early warning threat signals which aims to provide alerts on incoming threats, shutdown and remediate for prevention. These solutions come at a cost to implement but would however prevent firms to a large extent from cyber-attacks,” he said.

She added that the importance of information security is to protect the companies’ ability to function, enable the safe operation of applications implemented on the organisation’s IT systems, protect the data that establishments’ collect and use, and to safeguard the technology assets in the organisation.

“Information security is crucial to all organizations as it will protect their information and assist them to adequately conduct their businesses. Information security is defined as the protection of information and the system as well as hardware that use, store and transmit that information,” she said.

Okeremi implored the management of financial and non-financial organisations to improve their levels of cyber security awareness as any organisation can be attacked at some point in time.

“Businesses should carry out frequent and proactive vulnerability assessment on their infrastructure in order to determine threat areas. There are solutions that offer early warning threat signals which aims to provide alerts on incoming threats, shutdown and remediate for prevention. These come at a cost to implement but would however prevent organisations to a large extent from cyber-attacks.

“It is important for businesses to safeguard sensitive information, services and products. This further protects their internal and third-party customers from theft, email-borne viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, malware and phishing attacks”, she added.