The Managing Director and CEO of Arit of Africa, an information communications and technology (ICT) firms in Nigeria, Ronke Okeremi, has advanced reasons why financial data of banks is the most prone to cyber-attacks in the world.

She said financial data is the most attractive and hence financial institutions are more likely to be attacked. She therefore asked business owners to execute regular vulnerability assessment to determine areas of threat.

Okeremi implored managers of financial and non-financial organisations to improve the levels of cyber security awareness as any organisation can be attacked at some point in time.

While describing cyberattack as any risk of financial loss, disruption or damage to the reputation of an organisation that may arise from some failures of its information technology systems, she said that identity theft has become rampant, as such, she warned financial institutions and banks to be watchful.

She implored organizations to be aware of real and perceived cyber threats and that financial institutions should put in place measures that would allow them to swiftly deal with all or any potential attacks.

“There are solutions that offer early warning threat signals which aims to provide alerts on incoming threats, shutdown and remediate for prevention. These solutions come at a cost to implement but would however prevent firms to a large extent from cyber-attacks.”

She added that the importance of information security is to protect the companies’ ability to function, enable the safe operation of applications implemented on the organisation’s IT systems, protect the data that establishments’ collect and use, and to safeguard the technology assets in the organisation.

“Information security is crucial to all organizations as it will protect their information and assist them to adequately conduct their businesses. Information security is defined as the protection of information and the system as well as hardware that use, store and transmit that information.

“Businesses should carry out frequent and proactive vulnerability assessment on their infrastructure in order to determine threat areas. There are solutions that offer early warning threat signals which aims to provide alerts on incoming threats, shutdown and remediate for prevention. These come at a cost to implement but would however prevent organisations to a large extent from cyber-attacks.

“It is important for businesses to safeguard sensitive financial information, services and products. This further protects their internal and third-party customers from theft, email-borne viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, malware and phishing attacks”, she advised.