The general public has been cautioned by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to be on the lookout for online criminals who engage in identity theft.
In a statement released on Sunday in Abuja, Mrs Hadiza Umar, Head of Corporate Affairs and External Relations at NITDA, issued the warning.
According to Umar, the organization is issuing the warning since October is recognized nationally as Cyber Security Awareness Month.
She clarified that identity theft is committing fraud while posing as another individual.
According to Umar, “The main objective of this kind of fraud is to obtain enough personally identifiable information about a victim so that the attacker can use it to conduct fraud in their name.
“The stolen information can be used for various fraudulent activities such as taking over the victim’s accounts, applying for loans in their name, accessing medical services, defrauding family and friends, and a whole lot more”.
Umar gave the general public the advice to keep the amount of private information they published on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to a minimum.
Umar said that users should use multi-factor authentication wherever possible and only use secure, one-time passwords for all of their online accounts.
She said: “Ensure you visit only websites that are secured, and avoid using public Wi-Fi to carry out sensitive transactions and other processes that require logging into an account.
“Never provide corporate or personal data such as date of birth, mother’s maiden name, or National Identification Number to unsolicited callers, via email or text message”.
Umar suggested contacting the agency’s Computer Emergency Readiness Response Team (CERRT) with any questions from the general public.
She said they can be reached by email: cerrt@nitda.gov.ng or contact +2348178774580 and on the web: www.cerrt.ng.
