Have you ever stopped to wonder what the next five years will be like? Well, I have and sometimes it is quite scary especially for a rapidly evolving country like Nigeria where innovation and adoption seem to be moving faster than the necessary laws and policies.
More Nigerians, businesses and services are going digital, generating tonnes of various types of data and it appears we are simply not prepared for what may happen.
The President of Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria, Remi Afon, informed me while chatting on Tech Trends that a number of banks and telcos have experienced breaches and data stolen from them and because there is no law mandating them to make these breaches public; they simply carry on like nothing happened.
This is why, according to him, his association is pushing for the enactment of a data protection law that will complement the cybercrime law. In his words, “The law will force organisations to be more responsible in protecting other people’s data under their custody and the ability to know and inform the public whenever there is a breach.”
Data privacy and protection is something we must take seriously as the Internet of Things comes closer to us in Nigeria and the rest of Africa because with the number of smart devices getting connected, generating quantum of data from different geo-graphics, online security experts say the possibilities of hacks and breaches are not farfetched.
Already, billions of smart devices are connected at the moment and more will be connected in the future. As already stated, the more connected these smart devices are, the more vulnerable and susceptible to hacking they become.
According to a study carried out by Hewlett Packard, about three-quarters of all Internet of Things devices are susceptible to getting hacked or compromised. A study of 10 common smart devices, which included thermostats, smart TVs and webcams, were studied.
“Each device had approximately 25 vulnerabilities”, the study claimed. For instance, connected printers, video conferencing systems, etc are all easy IoT-connected targets that are susceptible to being hacked by cyber criminals. They do this, mostly by snooping on the targeted organisation through listening into calls or using the unsecured systems to reach other parts of the network and make off with private information.
It does not take up to five minutes to hack into an internet-connected device that lacks the most basic cyber security protocols. The absence of these protocols only paves the way for — Finish Reading on the Punch Website