SIR: One major recurring security incidence ravaging Nigeria’s financial industry is unauthorized, fraudulent withdrawal of money from customers’ accounts. It appears this cybercrime alongside its implications has come to stay.
There are at least two types of cyber criminals behind these dastardly acts. First are crackers who use attacking methods like phishing, pharming, vishing, smishing and the likes to swindle gullible customers of their hard-earned money. Second are insiders in some of these financial institutions who abuse the trusts their employers and customers reposed in them by compromising and breaching confidential customers details at their disposal either on their own accords or by conniving with a third party to share the proceeds of the frauds.
Crackers are experts in sourcing for information to achieve their aims. Disguising as staff of the banks is their ambush strategy. This has helped them to prey on the vulnerabilities of their victims. Gullible customers of most financial institutions unknowingly provide their personal banking details to these fraudsters on a platter of gold. These sensitive banking details are then used to breach the accounts of customers.
Vishing is simply using telephone systems to imitate a legitimate personality or entity to scam people into divulging personal details. A lot of people have received phone calls from unusual numbers claiming to be customer service personnel from financial institutions alerting them of some dangers or challenges awaiting their accounts and the need to urgently provide some details which will be used to wade off the danger or rectify the challenge. Smishing on the other hand involves the use of SMS (text messages) to deceive people to divulge sensitive data about their account. Divulging sensitive data via vishing or smishing have led to fraudulent withdrawals of money from a lot of customers’ accounts.
Insiders are staff of financial institutions who have access to customers’ sensitive data and used same to perpetrate frauds. There is quite a number of staff of financial institutions involved in this for so many reasons. Most are outsourced staff who are disgruntled over poor remuneration, bleak career future or sheer greed. In as much as nothing justifies these dishonourable acts, it is important for employers in the financial industry to put sound welfare packages, good career paths and conducive environment in place to dissuade staff from these unwholesome ventures. A lot of banks’ staff have no terminal benefits after many years of rigorous service. Staff are annually exited from the system in a blink of the eye without any reason other than cutting costs. This is one of the reasons the banking industry in the country have the highest rate of staff turnover. What’s worse? Most of these banks lack or are short of experienced personnel capable of investigating and tracing the insider perpetrators.
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All these come at a cost too high for the customers to bear. Many customers have had their life savings, investments and retirements benefits wiped out of their accounts in a twinkle of an eye.
Financial institutions cannot continue to ignore these ugly trends and their repercussions. Trust is one of the currencies of banking. Litigations, loss of customers and businesses, reputational damages, loss of revenue among many others are some of the repercussions awaiting banks who choose not to curtail these dastardly acts. Losing one customer may be like an insignificant drip of water from a leaking bucket. In time, the drips will empty the buckets of its contents.
Ensuring security of depositor’s funds is a major factor in the financial industry. It boosts customer and businesses bases. A thorough study and understanding of the root causes of the failures of some banks to curtail these cybercrimes provides a very good platforms to convert these lacunas to advantages.
Skilled Internal Auditors are central to tackling these maladies. No matter how good these fraudsters are in covering their tracks, auditors who know their onions can uncover these tracks. They can unravel the root causes of the frauds and help institute a sound control environment. More importantly, the body languages of the board of directors, management staff and top officials is a good pointer to the success or failure of the control environments
Customers on their part needs to redefine trusts to exclude being comfortable with anyone masquerading as a representative of a brand and learn how not to share personal banking information to strangers. Providing maximum security for personal sensitive information is the obligation of all customers.
•Oluwatosin Abraham,
Lagos.