Banks must tackle cybercrime – GAB Boss

Mr. Daniel K Mensah, the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB), has said it has become more important than ever for banks and corporate institutions to deal with the issue of cybercrime.

This, he said, is because while businesses in the country are migrating onto the electronic platform, e-crime is becoming the most common form of economic crimes targeting organisations at the same time.

He said Ghana has been identified as a major hub for cybercrimes, saying a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs &Crime on Globalisation of Crimes in 2010 highlights the problem of cyber criminality in Ghana in particular and the West Africa sub-region.

He said the country has been ranked among the top 10 cybercrime offending nations by the Internet Crime Complaint Centre through its yearly Internet Fraud Report.

“Assessment of electronic related crimes targeting businesses in Ghana by industry players including e-Crime Bureau also highlights the vulnerability of our institutions to cyber attacks and related fraud schemes.”

In addition, he said there are recent cases of e-mail-related fraud targeting organisations as well as hacking attempts targeting government and corporate websites and the use of spywares/keyloggers by insiders to facilitate fraud in collaboration with external perpetrators as worrying examples of the nature of the problem to organisations.

He said despite these developments, the awareness of employees of corporate organisations relative to e-crime is below the minimum cyber security threshold and most businesses lag behind in the implementation of proactive information security measures to detect and prevent e-crime.

“There are instances where institutions have been defrauded by cyber fraudsters through e-mail scams and common social engineering tricks which are usually adopted by these fraudsters. However, because of lack of awareness, employees are unable to detect and prevent such common fraudulent schemes,” he added.

Mr. Mensah was speaking at the opening of the e-crime and countermeasures training workshop organised by e-Crime Bereau and Business and Financial Times in Accra.

The rationale behind the training is for participants to gain insights into the emerging cyber landscape in order to support efforts being made by their organisations to identify and adopt appropriate countermeasures to prevent such incidents.

He urged participants to acquire knowledge and skills to detect and prevent electronic-related crimes targeting businesses.

He said the training will take participants through hands on demonstrations and practical sessions on how cyber fraudsters use the computer and the internet to commit fraud and other economic crimes.

Mr. Albert Antwi-Bosiako, Founder of E-crime Bureau, said businesses in the country will continue to suffer from cyber fraud and attacks because it is a profitable venture for cyber criminals and law enforcement agencies are not well-equipped and resourced to track them down.

“Cybercrime will flourish because it is a low-risk crime but with high rewards. Detection rate is minimal because of the growing sophistication of the modus operandi of cyber criminals.”

In dealing with the challenges of the issue, he recommended that there is the need for a centralised reporting mechanism to collect information/intelligence on criminal actors in the cyberspace and their modus operandi.

He added that there is the need for a National Cyber Security Policy framework to serve as a broader policy roadmap to guide corporate institutions to develop IT security policies and best practice.

He also recommended a ban on e-waste and control of pirated software and computer-based applications.