KPMG seeks banks’ collaboration in fight against cybercrime

APPARENTLY irked by the increasing spate of cyber attacks in Nigerian banks, KPMG, a professional service company has urged financial institutions in the country to work together to tackle the menace.

Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos at the weekend, the Global Head of Cyber security, KPMG, U.K, Malcolm Marshall, stressed that with the increasing level of the crime, only concerted efforts would help checkmate the activities of the hackers.
“We are seeing business increasing using digital channels particularly banks and cyber attacks with increasing level of sophistication of these attacks. Two things that strike me that need to happen in Nigeria more and as well as other countries are around capability and collaboration.
“In many other countries there are university courses on cyber security which organisations are able to recruit from and build a skill base that needs to happening in Nigeria. Cyber attackers collaborate a great deal to finds ways to attack banks and other organisations and individuals, which translates into money for them.
“The good guys need to work harder at collaborating so that when organisation is attacked they quickly pass on the information as quickly as possible,” he added.

On his part, Partner, Information Protection and Business Research UK, George Quigley urged banks to acquire skills on how to tackle these menace.

He said: “The way to defend in this new environment is to make sure organisations get the skills and to make sure there is enough collaboration so that organisations will truly understand what is going on. Nobody should be afraid of saying they are being attacked because everybody is being attacked. And if we all know we are being attacked and we know how we are being attacked, we would know how better to defend ourselves.”

A Partner and Head of Risk Consulting Nigeria, Olumide Olayinka, said: “What we want to see more in Nigeria is banks collaborating because what we know about banks in Nigeria today is that when they are attacked, they are very shy or not willing to tell other banks they have been attacked so that the other banks would be able to know how to protect themselves.
“What happens is that once these criminals attack one bank and becomes successful, they go to another bank. So what we are trying to do is that we are talking to banks and regulators on how these banks can better collaborate. And I think it is a key element in trying to fight these organised criminals from attacking the livelihood of Nigerians.”