Wema Bank CEO Counsels Accountants On Cyber Security, Data Protection

<h4>Wema Bank CEO Counsels Accountants<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p><strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Wema Bank Plc&comma; Mr Ademola Adebise&comma; has advised accountants to store data safely and protect them against cybersecurity threats and other criminal breaches&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Adebise said this on Tuesday at the 16th Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria &lpar;ICAN&rpar; Western Accountants Conference themed &OpenCurlyQuote;Digital Economy&colon; Whither the Professional Accountant’ held in Ijebu-Ode&comma; Ogun State&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The MD&sol;CEO who stressed the importance of data storage and security said that accountants in the digital age must be flexible and knowledgeable to save data on storage devices on-premises or in the cloud&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;He also noted that in case of loss or data corruption&comma; the 21st-century accountant needs to be conversant with the Disaster Recovery Plan &lpar;DRP&rpar; to mitigate loss&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Mr Adebise explained that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;a large amount of data is sitting on storage&period; As accountants&comma; we need to safeguard our storage and be versed in data recovery and business continuity planning should there be a loss or corruption of data&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The accountant must know contemporary issues on cybersecurity – ensuring that digital information is safe and secure&comma; at all times&period; Going digital exposes you to risk from hackers&period; So&comma; as an accountant&comma; you need to have an in-depth knowledge of cybersecurity and must know the various data and information security standards to audit the environment&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;Apart from being security conscious and storing data securely&comma; the MD&sol;CEO further noted that modern accountants should understand the changes taking place in the profession&comma; including the evolution from traditional data collection methods&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;He said&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;these include using Enterprise Resource Planning systems that are interconnected to process data from production&comma; distribution&comma; marketing&comma; and sales&period; The accountant&comma; therefore&comma; needs to be skilled to understand the complexities&comma; transaction flows of the new ways of doing things and understand what data is saying&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;In Nigeria&comma; the most popular forms of cybercrimes that accountants and other professionals in the financial services sector are susceptible to include fraudulent electronic mails&comma; identity theft&comma; hacking&comma; cyber harassment&comma; spamming and Automated Teller Machine spoofing&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The biggest&comma; however&comma; is still fraud emails&period; The Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum &lpar;NeFF&rpar; revealed that bank customers lost N3&period;6 billion to cyber-fraud in two years &lpar;2017 and 2018&rpar;&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Data released by the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System &lpar;NIBSS&rpar; also showed attempted fraud in 2018 alone was about N9 billion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;