Chief security officers of banks seek CBN framework against cyber-crimes

Chief Security Officers (CSOs) of banks on Saturday urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide them with security framework that would blacklist cyber criminals in banks.

The CSOs’ resolve was presented by their leader, Mr Sam Okenye, at the end of a week-long conference on Nigerian Financial Sector Global Cyber Security held at Transcorp Hotel, Calabar.

Okenye said banks do not need to compete on security matters but rather collaborate in fighting cyber-crimes and carry out constant evaluation of their system.

According to him, the introduction of Bio-metric Verification Number (BVN) in the banking sector is an important tool to kick out fraud in banks.

He expressed the CSOs belief that whenever the CBN offered the expected framework, BVN would remain a major instrument for eliminating fraudsters from the banking system.

He said “such framework should become major instrument to kick those guys out of the banking system for a while.

“And they probably will be restricted from channel transactions, depending on what the framework entails.

“Chief security officers of banks are of the opinion that there is need for framework to combat cyber-crime and fraud and this is crucial.

“The BVN today is a major tool that will help banks to combat fraud. With BVN, you can identify a particular customer of a bank.’’

He said that although the CBN has a cyber-crimes committee, CSOs of banks re-emphasise that BVN should be a major tool in checking fraud in the banking system.

He explained that the week-long conference had identified low level of security awareness as hindrance in the fight against cyber crime.

He noted that “some customers divulge their sensitive information to fraudsters unknowingly. They put a call to them pretending to be calling from a bank.

“And because customers have low level of awareness, they disclose sensitive information and fall for fraud.

“So, low security awareness is a challenge which we are going to tackle as an industry. This is part of what we agreed on here.”