The Group Managing Director and Chief Executive of United Bank of Africa (UBA) Plc, Phillips Oduoza has emphasised the need for increased cyber-security vigilance in online banking transactions, even as he assured customers of the bank of secured transactions.
Speaking at the official opening of UBA’s security operation centre, Oduoza noted that as banking transactions move from the banking halls to various e-channels, there is an increased risk of cyber threats and crimes that could jeopardise the banking system if security is not tackled.
According to him, most of the bank’s transactions in recent times were done via e-banking channels, prompting the bank to step up its security with the world class security operation centre. Oduoza added that although the bank had invested a substantial sum into the centre which will protect the bank and its customers as well as guard the e-platforms against fraud, “the fund we invested is like insurance.
“If you do not pay your premium, you may be lucky and nothing happens, but if it happens the severity is very high, in this particular case, the probability of attack would be very high and the consequence, very severe. But we want to assure our customers that with what we have here, they are secured and we will continue to upgrade”, he stated.
UBA, according to its Group Head, IT Risk Management, Sam Okenye, has so far detected and shut down 161 fraudulent websites and over 1000 web attacks on the bank from across the globe with 61 per cent of such attacks coming from China.
Source: Leadership