The Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability (FSS), CBN, Mrs. Aishat Ahmad, who spoke in Abuja, Tuesday at the 2018 CBN-JP Morgan Chase Cyber Security Conference, said the CBN was committed to strengthening the regulatory and supervisory framework for cyber risk and encouraging realistic vulnerability testing and contingency planning for regulated institutions.

Ahmad, who represented the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, at the conference, which dwelt on “building cyber resilience,” stated that in partnership with stakeholders “in the financial industry we are developing a Risk Based Cyber Security Framework for deposit money banks and payment service providers and internally, we have relied on instruments of automation, artificial”.

According to her, new conveniences of modern technology have ushered in complex security challenges and cybercrime.
“These range from identity and intellectual property theft, phishing, email spamming, virus dissemination, to sophisticated hacking and theft by digital crime syndicates.

“These developments have led to a significant rise in the global cost of cybercrime,” Ahmad said.

A recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), she added, estimated global annual losses from cyber-attacks at close to nine per cent of banks’ net income or around $100 billion.

“And in a severe scenario, where the frequency of attacks are twice as high as currently experienced and with greater contagion, losses could be as high as $350 billion,” the CBN deputy governor said.

She noted that there was no gain saying the fact that automation and technological innovations over the past decade had impacted almost every facet of human endeavour.

Technology, she added, had transformed the learning, communication, service delivery as well as the way financial transactions are conducted.