By Bakah Derick
The National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC) has cautioned teachers and ICT users in the North West Region on the need to remain vigilant about common cyber threats facing them.
Speaking in Bamenda on Wednesday 27 October 2021, during the oepning of a three-day training seminar on cybersecurity and the fight against Cybercrime for Secondary School and University Teachers in the North-West Region, Ngwang Yufenyuy Landry, North West Regional Branch Manager for ANTIC pointed phishing, Identity theft, Data Breach, Ransomware, Fake News as the most common threats around the cyberspace.
Phishing which he explained as "attacks leverage social engineering by exploiting human emotion to trick victims into giving up sensitive information such as home and email addresses, passwords or credit card details."
Unlike Identity theft which occurs when someone uses your personal identifying information like email address, passwords, and pretends to be you in order to commit fraud or to gain other financial benefits online, the branch manager noted that "A data breach is a security incident in which private or sensitive information (such as student data) is accessed without authorization."
Threats which involve hackers holding data hostage in exchange for money or other demands and fake news he noted remain common.
While admitting that cybersecurity is a serious problem in his sector, North-West Regional delegate for Secondary education said the above threats are recurrent especially with students reason why the work being done by ANTIC is necessary.
"It is a problem that is real amongst our youth and students are not left out. We have been able to identify areas where they are getting involve which are not good. You find some of them use phones, use cyberspace to get involve in scamming activities and some of them use that space to commit activities that go to put stress and streal on their peers students and on their teachers and you find students teachers victimised because youths with ideas that are strange are using the facilities the wrong way" Ngwang Roland Yuven said
The General Manager of ANTIC Prof. Ebot Ebot Enaw in an earlier release indicated that at the end of the seminar, teachers and lecturers will acquire "skills needed to integrate cybersecurity in ICT courses, in a bid to educate youths -principal users of ICTs, on the dangers inherent in the usage of these new technologies."
The Second deputy Mayor of the Bamenda City Council Lucas Ngu Afong who jointly opened the serminar has expressed satisfaction with the ANTIC and secondary school partnership expected to build a firm mechanism against Cybercrime.
The over 50 teachers will receive lectures on several modules amongst them general concepts on cybercrime, legal framework and human rights, privacy and data protection, digital forensics and cybercrime, ICTs for education and challenges in the COVID-19 era."
The seminar falls within ANTIC's mission of securing national cyberspace.