Proliferation of cyber insecurity in Nigeria: a root cause analysis

Abstract

With increasing access to internet and online resources in Nigeria, an exponential increase is observed in the rate of cybercrimes in Nigeria. Cybercrime rates increase geometrically, hence, giving Nigeria notoriety as a nation with a highly insecure cyberspace, the study aimed at identifying the root cause of the increase in the rate of cyber insecurity in Nigeria. The study adopted a survey methodology in which interview sessions were used for data collection. 50 respondents were purposively sampled. Data collected were analysed using the 5 WHYs method of root causes analysis. The research identified poor promotion of cyber security professionals’ recruitment, training, and upgrade in technical knowledge and development in Nigeria; lack of feasibility and workability analysis of the resultant effects of certain policies on the overall economic sector of the nation, sabotage by monitoring and regulation agencies which render the energy sector unfunctional; and sabotage by the elite class for personal gains and poor funding of the security agencies as the root causes of the increase in cyber insecurity in Nigeria. The study further highlighted recurrent prevention strategies to these root causes, such as the establishment of world class cyber security training institutions to train digital forensics investigators, and ethical hackers on global best practice and ways of combating the activities of cyber criminals among other strategies.

Keywords: cyber security, cybercrimes, root cause, 5whys, proliferation, promotion