The United States of America, USA, through
the public affairs unit of its mission in Nigeria, last week, raised an
awareness campaign capable of reducing Nigeria’s cyber security problem to the
barest minimum. The mission’s 14th national cybersecurity awareness month, held
in Lagos, centred on teaching Nigerians, particularly youths, how to keep away
from cyber criminals In his welcome remarks, the Consul General of US Consulate
in Lagos, John Bray said that “every year, billions of dollars are lost through
cybercrimes globally. 
Cybersecurity Ventures predict that
the global community will lose more than $6 trillion annually by 2021. “With
the number of internet users growing daily, law enforcement officials expect
the number of victims to increase as well as the value of their losses. Without
good cybersecurity in place, experts estimate that nearly half of the entire
G-20 economy will be lost to cybercriminals”. He said that for this reasons,
the immediate past US President, Barack Obama, in 2009, called for an increase
in education and dialogue about Cybersecurity in the Cyberspace Security
Review.
As part of that policy review, Bray
said that the Department of Homeland Security, created an ongoing Cybersecurity
awareness campaign – Stop.Think.Connect, which is a national public awareness
campaign designed to raise awareness of cybersecurity and to be more vigilant
about practicing safe online habits. Meanwhile,the Lagos state Police Public
Relations Officer, Dolapo Badmus, while delivering a goodwill message at the
event disclosed that police was on the verge of creating a new unit, the anti
cybercrime unit specially to deal with cases of cyber crime.
Badmus said the functions of the
unit will include creating awareness on many other acts of cyber crimes, apart
from the ones categorised as yahoo yahoo, which are not common to people. She
spoke while giving a goodwill message at the 14th National Cybersecurity
awareness month organised by the Public Affairs department of the United States
of America, US Embassy in Nigeria. Badmus said that police decided to do this
because “people should understand and be aware of the Cybercrime Act which was
passed recently.
Besides the crimes we categories
under the yahoo yahoo offences, there are other ones which can fetch the
offender, not less than two years imprisonment. Such crimes include unlawful access
into another person’s computer, posting falsehood about someone on social media
and a host of others. “Very soon, the Police force is going to create anti
cybercrime unit. The officers that will be in this unit will be trained based
on the cybercrime law and would be responsible for creating awareness of the
law and also arrest and prosecuting offenders of the act”.
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