Director of the Cybercrime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service Dr. Gustav Yankson has disclosed that Ghana lost US$105million to cyber-crime in 2018.
According to him, the latest figures has shown that money lost to cyber fraudsters increased from US$35million in 2016 to US$105million in 2018.
Dr. Gustav Yankson said it added to the US$69 million lost in 2017.
Delivering the keynote address at the maiden edition of the Ghana Insurers Association’s (GIA) Information Technology Conference under the theme: “Emerging trend domain and impact of cybersecurity threats on the insurance industryâ€, a Cyber analyst with e-crime Bureau Philemon Hini argued it is time heads of institutions in the country lead the fight against cyber-crime by prioritizing investments in IT solutions.
“Within our institutions, the management level must appreciate the need for cybersecurity solutions. Because from what we are seeing now cybersecurity has been left entirely in the hands of the IT department without much interest from management. Because management does not fully appreciate cybersecurity issues it becomes difficult to get the funding needed to put the right systems in place.â€
Managing Director (MD) of SIC Insurance Company Limited Stephen Oduro, stated that insurance companies must protect their data with improved investment into IT systems to prevent cyber fraud.
“IT should not and I stress, should not be an afterthought. We should do all we can to prevent these unnecessary budget cuts as far as IT expenditures are concerned,†Mr. Oduro said.
Chamber of Telecommunications calls for more education to reduce cyber-crime in Ghana
The Chamber of Telecommunications Ghana has called for more education in the country to help reduce the cases of cyber-crime.
Chief Executive of the chamber Ken Ashigbey said there is a need for more education because most cyber-crime cases are not caused by technical problems but rather are socially engineered.
Speaking at Jumia Mobile week launch and mobile report in Accra, Ken Ashigbey added that the country should put in place the needed infrastructures to deal with cyber-crime.
"Fortunately for us there is cybersecurity policy that going to parliament that will try to deal with it you will bear with me that we have been doing that for a while and the criminals have also been at it and they constantly are at the forefront so the same way………..so that we can understand the thinking and mentality of the scammers because in Ghana most of our challenges are not from the technical point of view but it’s more from the social engineering whether you know that you yourself you have not participated in any promotion for jumia and somebody will call you and say I’m from jumia and you turn to fall for this…â€
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