Omowunmi Semudara
To mark the 2023 National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has lined up series of programmes specifically focused on sensitising the general public on cybersecurity threats and steps necessary to protect ourselves in the ever-growing digital space.
NITDA stated that The theme for this year’s celebration : See Yourself in Cyber, highlights that cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.
Disclosing this in a press statement from the office of NITDA signed by Mrs Hadiza Umar, Head, Corporate Affairs and External Relations,
NITDA said “The main purpose of this awareness campaign is to encourage the adoption of safe cyber hygiene. To achieve this effectively, citizens need to accept, understand and be willing to apply these security measures to stay secure.”
According to the statement, Last years, the agency trained 3242 on basic and intermediate cyber security skills in partnership with CISCO.
“The Cybersecurity Awareness Month held every October, is a month set aside globally to educate and create cybersecurity awareness. This year marks the 20th in the series of collaborative awareness campaigns between public and private sector organisations globally”.
The statement further mentioned that NITDA is partnering with relevant stakeholders to carry out grassroot awareness campaigns aimed at sensitising the general public of these cyberthreats and how to protect themselves. Specifically, the Agency is collaborating with Galaxy Backbone to disseminate specially-designed information flyers to public sector organisations.
“The Agency has, in conjunction with O-range Cybersecurity Training Service Limited, conducted Cybersecurity Training in Ilorin, Kwara State, where more than 5,000 youths from various states participated.”
This year’s awareness campaign focuses on sensitising citizens on identifying and countering the following:
Digital Misinformation and Disinformation;
Social media attacks (Authentication and Social Engineering attacks);
Phishing (Phishing scam websites, Email phishing/Business email compromise);
Cyber bullying;
Online responsible behaviour; and
Ransomware attacks.
Other activities lined up include:
The NITDA-Cisco Cybersecurity Awareness Training aimed at training 4,000 youths in Ethical Hacking, Endpoint Security, Network Defense, and Cyber Threat Management. The call for application was opened on the 2nd October while the portal for the virtual training will be opened on 18th October 8, 2023;
A two-day Innovation Challenge on Cybersecurity programme, designed to identify and showcase innovative technologies on cybersecurity with special focus identifying solutions that can be adopted in the public sector. So far, over 3,000 applications have been submitted; and
General Awareness programme focusing on sensitising the general public on NITDA’s initiatives and services such as:
Trustmark system for online trading;
Free Web Application Firewall for all MDAs;
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI);
Free Vulnerability Analysis and Penetration Testing (VAPT) for MDAs; and
Monitoring of MDAs portals, social media monitoring and recovery, digital forensics, Cyber drill, and Cybersecurity Training.
