Nigerian businesses have been asked to adopt smart solutions in confronting growing cyber security challenges on the Internet.

This is the highlight of viewpoints by experts at a security forum organised by Dizengoff in Lagos, Nigeria to reawaken local business players to the reality of cyber security.

Guy Rabinovich, General Manager Communications Technology, Dizengoff Nigeria, advises businesses, including government, to toughen their physical security solutions platform amid growing cyber security threats.

He was speaking at the forum tagged “Smart security solutions: Unification and Integration” organised by tech company, Dizengoff amid growing cyber threats, and physical security issues and integrative communications systems.

Rabinovich says that as vital as they have become as security tools, many CCTV and access control platforms leave security backdoors that are easily exploitable by hackers.

He told forum participants that “although one could say that there is some form of response to the issue from quite a few quarters at the moment, if you took a close look however, you would find that what is being done is too feeble compared to the magnitude of the problem of cyber-security, including physical security threats across all sectors of the economy.”

According to him, with growing sophistication in the economy, criminals are also a step ahead and there is no telling the havoc they are capable of pulling off.  ”I believe that there has to be a stronger push from businesses including government to do more in terms of awareness and knowledge on what must be done to effectively make their physical security solutions cyber secure.”

Businesses should take the issue of cyber security more seriously by making conscious efforts to be aware of the magnitude and complexity of the problem, and begin to implement smart security solutions to protect themselves from threats and attacks, he says.

Also speaking at the event, Anti Ritvonen, Dizengoff CEO/Country Manager, asks businesses, organizations and individuals to take cyber security issues more seriously because “there is no gain saying that everything in modern day living, including physical security solutions, is today linked one way or the other to the Internet.”

Dizengoff’s CEO says that “everything in modern living is today interlinked whether domestic, business or even government. Hence physical security systems must be protected from cyber-attacks in order to accomplish the purpose of their deployment in the first place.”

According to him, “it is evident that as economies and indeed society are becoming more sophisticated, criminals are equally getting smarter and are wreaking havoc at every opportunity.

“This is why we must move away from the paradigms of the past by implementing smart systems that provide real and cost effective solutions. Security challenges in the environment now require that you have the capability to prevent breaches”, Ritvonen says.

The Dizengoff CEO also reckons that Nigeria, being one the biggest economies in Africa, is a sure target of cybercrime, just as the country is vulnerable to growing sophistication in physical security concerns.

“Right now, as we advance in technology, we become more vulnerable to threats. People need to understand this and know how to meet up with the challenges associated with these threats”, Ritvonen says.

Citing recent figures released on countries’ vulnerability to cyber-attacks, he says that Nigeria is listed as number 61 in 2017 as the country was estimated to have over $450 million to cybercrimes alone.

Participants at the forum were drawn from different sectors of the economy including ICT, financial, hospitality and oil and gas.