Operator charges payment industries, security agencies on cybercrimes

TO curb the growing influence and activities of cybercriminals in Nigeria, experts are of the view that lack of cohesive coordination between the payment industry and security agencies to a larger extent has influenced the menace.

One of such experts is VoguePay, a leading Nigeria payment platform that serves several small businesses in four continents. VoguePay gives a unique insight into the security challenges faced by international businesses, both large and small, stressing that currently there seems to be a reluctance to tackle the problem at its roots, with some security agencies having the attitude that businesses can mitigate this via insurance pay-outs.

In their review of fraudulent transactions, VoguePay revealed that the pattern detected by its security parameters points to an increase in deliberate collaboration between crime syndicates, using geo-location to avoid detection. It stressed that even when caught, the cyber criminals use geo-location patterns to avoid prosecution.

Citing examples of breaches, the Chief Executive Officer of VoguePay, Michael Simeon, said a criminal could be using a card issued in the USA to perform transactions in the UK, via a merchant in China. This way the criminals are taking full advantage of the lack of cross-country coordination when it comes to fighting cyber-crime.

Simeon believed that cyber criminals are well aware of the constraints affecting cyber-security authorities, which include coordination, cooperation, culture and budget.

He added that, “another pattern we have noticed is criminals bypassing the card issuer’s authentication system by spending multiple small value transactions across different geographical locations. These go without investigation by the cyber-security authorities due to the small values involved. However, collectively this represents high value cyber-fraud, especially for small businesses who are majorly the victims of such vices and do not have the resources or capabilities of larger companies to absorb such losses.”

While there is no single security tool to eliminate cyber security threats; Simeon opined that businesses must apply a raft of security measures including KYC, in the fight against cyber-attacks.