The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has cautioned Nigerians to beware of activities of cyber criminals, who might take advantage of the current coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic, to defraud them.
A statement by the Bank’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Isaac Okorafor made available to Newsdiaryonline on Monday, disclosed that the criminals steal sensitive information or gain unauthorized access to computers or mobile devices using various techniques.
While emphasizing that CBN’s priority is to ensure that Nigerian banking customers were aware of the ongoing trend, to prevent them from falling victims to such cyber crimes, the statement added that the criminals had also produced COVID-19 maps to steal information in the background.
“While Nigerians work to keep safe physically and prevent further spread of the virus, they must also endeavour to apply caution in order to beat not just the COVID-19 virus but also the cyber criminals seeking to take advantage of its spread for nefarious acts.
“One of the cyber crime activities was phishing campaigns where the criminals sent out emails claiming to be from health organisations such as Nigerian Centre for Disease Control or the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“The email might contain a link which if clicked, steals login credentials or other confidential information from the victim’s computer or mobile device.
“Other means are on relief package where cyber criminals had also been sending messages via social media or emails asking people to click on links to register in order to get their relief packages from government or other organisations,” the statement read.
