Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) along with other stakeholders in the country has concluded plans to discuss “the Future of Cyber Security in Nigeria’s Digital Transformation.”
The event, which is scheduled for October 6 and 7 in Lagos would be held both physically and virtually. CSEAN President, Remi Afon, said the cyber-secure Nigeria conference has become a yearly event but that due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was low-keyed and virtual in 2020.
Afon, who called for review of the Cybercrime Law 2015 to take into considerations, emerging technologies that appear to be contributing to menace of the crime in Nigeria, and across the globe, said this year’s conference is the seventh of its kind and promises to invoke a collaborative effort, an assembly of cybersecurity industry practitioners, business owners, academia, industry, government, military and law enforcement agencies to identify areas of common interests and proffer inter-workings on ways to tackle cybercrime.
He said the Cybercrime Law has not been reviewed to accommodate new threats from Cryptocurrency, fakenews, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, among others.
Afon stressed that the Nigerian judicial system must also build capacity to ensure diligence. On the planned conference, he said the two-day event will attract the best in the cybersecurity industry globally and feature-rich cybersecurity content of informative and educational value.
He said whilst tech innovation is empowering forces behind booming businesses and growing economies over the world, the increasing integration of digital technologies into almost all aspects of our society is also exposing many to several associated cyber threats.
The CSEAN president said in the last few months, there has been an astronomical increase in ransomware attacks worldwide and there is no sign that this will reduce in the next foreseeable future.
He said ransomware damages are envisaged to cost the world $20 billion by 2021, which is unprecedented as it is 57 more times than what it was in 2015, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.
According to him, digital transformation has resulted in rapid technological advances such as cloud adoption, blockchain implementation, use of cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, 5G and data sciences.
He said the increase in the number of connected devices in recent years has resulted in the accumulation of data like never before. “At this rate, we are creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day thus the need for big data analytics. With the pandemic ravaging global economy, adoption of remote working, reliance on IT, the recent acceleration in ransomware attacks; it becomes important to understand the role of cybersecurity in digital transformation. 2021 cyber-secure Nigeria conference will focus on how organisations can safeguard their assets while implementing digital transformation agenda.”