Rise in Cyber attacks on government website threatens E-governance

Ben Uzor Jr

Efforts by federal government to promote the adoption of the internet for delivering government information and services to its citizenry is been threatened by the recent spike in incidences of cyber attacks on websites of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government, experts have said. E-Governance, according to industry experts strengthens the very fabric of democracy by ensuring greater citizen participation at all levels of governance.

In the preceding year, cyber criminals attacked prominent government websites including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST). This trend, according to industry analysts is expected to continue in the new year. It is also particularly worrying because Nigeria still does not have requisite legislation to protect data, Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and prosecute perpetrators of cyber crimes.

Ernst & Young has estimated that the Nigerian economy loses $200 million annually to cyber crime. Omobola Johnson, minister of communication technology has at various stakeholder fora expressed federal government’s desire to strengthen e-governance in the country, further predicting that by 2015 all MDAs will have effective websites. Though, there has been some level of progress in that regard, government's efforts, according to industry analysts could be negated by the growing incidences of online attacks on government websites.

The number of MDAs with effective websites increased from 370 in 2011 to 420 in 2012, according to statistics from the ministry of communications technology. Besides, the number of cases involved with the defacement of government websites in Nigeria has continued to rise from 10 percent back in 2010 to 60 percent as at 2012, reports Centrex Ethical Lab, a cyber-security and intelligence company based in Abuja. But interestingly, the data shows that there has been an increase in cyber-violations of official websites of government agencies over the last three years.

A total of 23 official government websites (.gov.ng) were reported defaced in 2012 alone, out of a total of 60 website defacements during the year, including 15 cases of violation of .org government websites. "e-government is endangered without a National Cybercrime Act", Chris Uwaje, president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) told Benuzorreports in an interview. But there is hope. He disclosed that the Chairman Committee on Science and Technology was in Malaysia, november last year with the director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Cleopas Angaye to explore the modalities for a national Framework for Cybercrime Bill.

"The bill should be passed this year", he said. David Mbah, an industry analyst told Benuzorreports, that the increase in the number of cyber attacks in recent months poses multiple threats to government's e-governance initiatives. "Data security is a key concern in e-governance as the system of manually maintaining records has been gradually replaced with digitisation of data"."Maintaining high-level security is imperative in e-governance. If the system is not secured and hacked, the government will not be able to function smoothly,” Mbah further added.

When BusinessDay reached out to government officials in CBN, EFCC and ministry of science and technology for comments, they all declined, claiming that they were not authorised to speak on such matters. Experts pointed out that lack of knowledge was a critical reason for the vulnerability of government websites. Nsikak Nelson, a cyber-security expert said the lack of understanding of ethical hacking among many government officials is the main reason for the growing attack. Speaking in the same vein, Tim Unwin, chief executive officer of Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO), has urged government to formulate legal and regulatory frameworks to minimise cybercrimes.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), according to him had a very critical role to play in this area. Cybercrime, especially website hacking has seen tremendous growth around the world as major banks  in the United States (US) were hit with the biggest cyber-attacks in history, as well as the Vatican website being hacked twice in one week last year. These cyber attacks are expected to increase in 2013 and beyond as cyber-criminals continue to think of clever and sneaky ways to obtain customer’s credit card data and personal data, as well as in response to unfavorable government policies and actions.