Collaborate to fight cybercrime, – 2nd Dep. Governor

In a bid to facilitate faster detection and prevention of cyber financial crimes, actors operating in this sector have been advised of the need to stop operating independently of each other.

This call was made by the Head of the Financial Integrity Office at the Bank of Ghana, George Nkrumah, on behalf of the Mrs. Elsie Addo Awadzi, Second Deputy Governor, at the opening of a workshop organized by the central bank and the Committee for Cooperation between the Law enforcement and Banking Community (COCLAB).

“Cyber risks should be viewed from an enterprise-wide perspective. ICT, Security, Operations, Credit Control, Anti-Money Laundering, Judicial and Fraud Investigation departments need to stop working in silos, but collaborate to work together as a team to facilitate faster detection and prevention of cyber financial crimes,” Mr. Nkrumah said.

Key to the mitigation of this risk is the need to nurture talents capable of addressing cyber security threats through prompt detection, investigation, reporting, prosecution and prevention.

On October 19, 2019, the Criminal Investigative Department of the Ghana Police Service reported that Ghana has lost over US$ 200 million in the past three years to cybercrime.

A research done in November 2016 by the African Union Commission, in partnership with Symantec found that Ghana was among the top-10 most attacked countries in Africa.

Mr. Nkrumah noted that the central bank continues to receive data on several attempted cyber-incidents ranging from unauthorized access to bank servers and card cloning, to phishing, vishing or ransomware attacks.

In effect, the fraudsters are getting more sophisticated with the advancement of technology, he added.

The financial services sector is a key target for cyber-criminals because it is the custodian of large amounts of funds in the economy. For this same reason, the financial services sector has to also deal with other types of risks, which among others include, fraud, extortion, money laundering, illicit financial flows, market manipulation, data theft, and currency attacks.

“With statistics showing an increase of cyber-attacks in the financial sector, the importance of ensuring that our institutions are cyber resilient cannot be over-emphasized,” Mr. Nkrumah stated.