The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in cybercrimes as more people resort to the online way of performing some activities.
According to some observers in the financial sector, there has been an increase in cyber fraud in Ghana months after the country recorded its first two cases of COVID-19.
The danger of cybercrime has been in existence for several years and this pandemic has provided opportunities for cybercriminals to take advantage of the people, make money and create disruptions.
Speaking exclusively to Universnews, Mr. Eric Kwaku Mensah who is a cyber security expert at E-crime Bureau indicated that businesses and institutions in the country must engage in continuous vulnerability tests to detect loop holes in their operations.
“All institutions at this point in time should as a matter of urgency do vulnerability test on their systems so that all these holes can be patched. It is important that at this point in time all businesses including government organizations ought to take these tests to identify the loops holes within their systems” he said.
According to reports by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, the country has lost more than 200million dollars between 2016 and 2018 on reported cyber crime cases.
Other cybers security experts warn that the number is likely to increase because of the migration of certain businesses online because of the pandemic.
Mr. Eric Mensah further explained that curbing the cyber fraud requires the procurement of more monitoring and tracing equipments that could help identify and bring to book individuals involved in these fraudulent acts.
“Having enough monitoring systems in place to trace these criminals and put them behind bars is relative because Ghana’s system and other countries such as Israel, Singapore and US are not the same and in other to bring people behind bars, you need enough evidence and the capacity to trace them” he said.
He advised that businesses be vigilant about phishing emails, websites and avoid using the same password for multiple websites.
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Story by: Seyram Abdallah│www.universnewsroom.com