A new world of cyber insecurity

Cyberspace is today very critical to every country’s socio-economic, cultural and political activities. Its disruption may adversely affect the country because with many activities readily moving to the internet, cyberspace has become a new stage for innovations, enterprise, social networking, criminality and war.

Indeed information and communication technology systems are now as basic to humans as life necessities such as shelter, water and electricity. Individuals, corporate entities, and government agencies depend on ICT and computer networks to perform simple as well as complex tasks from research to business and commerce.

But it has brought cybercrimes such as spamming, credit card frauds, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) frauds, Phishing and identity theft. Criminal gangs especially Boko Haram terrorists have equally taken advantage of the freedom offered by the many internet platforms to wage a battle of minds and win converts to their fold. Personal and collective security has also come under increasing emerging digital threats.

The outing last year of the spy software, Pegasus, which is used by organizations and nation states to trail persons of interests, has opened the eyes of the world to the realities of digital insecurity. Given the rising dependence of nations and their citizens on cyberspace, the U.S tries to impose its own models of control of ICTs and the global web in order to monopolize the gathering, storing and use of personal information backed by favourable U.S. legal interpretation of actions made by any party in the internet. Nigeria’s immediate response to increasing digital insecurity was to formulate an elaborate National Cyber security policy and strategy last year to reinforce her 2015 cyber crimes Act.

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-General Babagana Monguno (rtd) wrote in his preface to the policy document that; “the opportunities offered by the cyberspace revolution also create a platform for the enhancement and effective synchronization of the efforts of our intelligence, security challenges confronting the country.”

Under the 2015 cybercrime Act the NSA office serves as the coordinating body for the security and enforcement authorities to tackle offences against critical national information infrastructure, hacking computer systems and data alteration and many other cyber crimes.

When a cybercrime is committed against the government, it is considered an attack on the sovereignty of a nation and an act of war. Examples of cybercrime against the government reportedly include cyber warfare, cyber terrorism, hacking, gaining access to confidential information and the use of pirated software.

According to a report by a team of software experts, Tech Jury, about 20 million cases of cyber breaches were recorded in March, 2021 and for every 39 seconds, there is always a new cyber attack somewhere on the web globally, even as an average of 30,000 websites is hacked on a daily basis across the globe.

This reality affirms the importance of Nigeria and other African countries to insist on sovereignty over their national cyberspace to ensure their own independence. And this sovereignty will bar technologically advanced nations from seizing any opportunity to intervene in internal affairs of African countries.

It is on these grounds that Nigeria should create its own unique and independent approach to legal regulation of the global web. But the Nigerian approach should be based on the principles of respect of cyber sovereignty of states, non-interference in internal affairs and refrain from threats and use of force.

In fact it would be preferable to work out a joint universal international standards of countries behavior in cyberspace, taking into account the specifities of the cyber environment while using currently existing laws and adapting to new international laws on cybercrimes. Consequently, there is the need for Nigeria to participate in all activities of the UN Open-Ended Working Groups (OEWGs) on formation of effective global information system now that cyber attack that cause real damage to human health, safety, economic income and threaten nations’ political stability and elections frequently occur.

The OEWGs are a type of format present in the UN that are typically considered the most open, as all UN member states and observer states, intergovernmental organizations with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) are invited to attend.

The OEWGs tries to find more common grounds on what is allowed and what is not in cyberspace and how to ensure adherence to these rules. Nigeria should lead other African countries in discussing the global information security system in order to advance a common position in the cyber OEWGs given that it is a body mandated by UN to continue to develop the rules, norms, and principles of responsible behavior of states, discuss ways for their implementation, and to study the possibility of establishing regular institutional dialogue with broad participation under the auspices of the UN.

Musa Ibrahim,

Lokoja, Kogi state