Online fraud rose by 82% in Nigeria for the year 2016 with an estimated loss of ₦2.19 billion ($6.9 million) being lost to cyber criminals.
A report tabled by the Nigeria Communications Week, says that fraud on electronic payment transactions in Nigeria rose by 82% in the year 2016. That saw cyber criminals conduct an online/digital heist worth an estimated ₦2.19 billion. That is according to the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF) annual report 2016.
Titled ‘a changing payments ecosystem; the security challenge,’ the report, released last Tuesday highlighted the increased of cyber crimes increase by 82% in the year 2016 compared to 2015. Gistreel says banking institutions reported 19,531 cases of fraud, a rise from 10,743 cases reported in 2015.
Breaking down the report, one comes to the realization that across the counter transactions losses were ₦511.07m ($1.6 million). Followed by losses at the ATM, which reach ₦464.5m ($1.4 million), internet banking saw ₦320.66m ($1 million), and Point of Sale (PoP) losses was ₦243.32m ($765,000).
On the mobile banking front, some ₦235.1m ($742,000) were lost. Additionally, ₦132.2m ($416,000) on e-commerce, ₦190m ($601,000) on the web, ₦10.1m ($31,000) on kiosks, ₦4.5m ($14,000) on cheque, and ₦190.0m ($601,000) on other uncategorized platforms.
The report goes further to clarify that “comparing the attempted fraud against the actual loss, the industry was able to salvage 49.7 percent of the total amount attempted by these fraudsters within the years… these figures informed us that there are more attempts on yearly basis with different innovation tricks or modus operandi to take advantage of the system.”
The report recommends that in 2017, the financial industry players must work together in ensuring there is a wider gap in the rate of incidences of attempted fraud and successful fraud.
