google

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Nigeria: EFCC Develops Software to Combat Cyber Crime - allafrica.com - 5 Sep 2008

The Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) says it is developing computer softwares that would monitor internet services in the country as a way to combat cyber crimes.

Spokesman of the Commission, Mr. Femi Babafemi, who disclosed this to IT World, said the Commission is partnering with Information and Communication experts to develop the software. He said already, the report of the technical committee on the development of the software has been submitted to the chairman, adding that so far, over 136 cyber crime suspects have been arrested since Mrs. Farida Waziri took over as chairman of the Commission.


"We made all these arrests as a result of 28 raids on cyber cafés across the country," Babafemi said. Breaking down the arrests, the spokesperson explained that 60 suspects were arrested in the South-West, 39 in the South-East, 26 from the South-South and 11 in the entire North. He added that cyber crime perpetrators were now migrating to remote areas to carry out their acts because of the constant raids in cities by law enforcement agencies.

Mr Babafemi denounced the insinuations that law enforcement agencies have inadequate computer knowledge to combat cyber criminals, saying that staff of the anti- graft body receive training regularly. According to him, cyber cafe owners have been very cooperative in the fight as only a few of them have been discovered to be collaborators.

According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the banking sector lost N7.3 billion to cyber crimes in 2007 alone. The 2007 Internet Crime Report ranked Nigeria as third on the list of top ten countries where cyber crimes are perpetrated.

By Suleiman Muhammad Odapu

No comments: