Accounts officers of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) have been urged to always be vigilant in order to safeguard the scheme’s online financial transactions.
The Director-General of NYSC, Brig-General Shuaibu Ibrahim, gave this charge Monday at the interactive meeting of NYSC States, FCT and Ventures Management Accountants, with the offices of the Accountant-General and Auditor-General for the Federation.
The workshop, themed; “The Importance and Challenges of Security in the Transaction of Public Business in the 21st Century,” was held in Abuja. General Ibrahim said that the phenomenal rise and sophistication of cybercrimes call for vigilance on the part of NYSC financial operators, in order to secure the scheme’s data networks and devices from hackers and scammers.
He added that the present cashless approach has also brought lots of unintended consequences, such as hacking of data, spamming, ATM fraud, identity theft, among other nefarious acts.
“This meeting is intended to adequately equip you with measures to mitigate, and even foil cyber-attack on our networks and devices which will ultimately safeguard all NYSC online financial transactions”, he said.
The NYSC boss said that management is poised to address the challenges and dangers posed by cyber criminalities, while also entrenching transparency in NYSC financial administration.
He advised the participants to “use the workshop to evolve ways to prevent the vulnerability of NYSC financial information uploaded on the internet, develop and nurture a culture of cyber security, as well as guard jealousy, your log-on details including your passwords.”
While commending the general performance of state accountants, the DG warned that management would not tolerate any shortcoming in the performance of their statutory responsibilities.
The Director, Finance and Accounts, Mr Mkinebari Adokor, said beyond the demonstration of the age-long culture and ethics of honesty, accountability and hardwork, which are key attributes of accounting profession, all accountants must be ICT compliant in order to be relevant in today’s dynamic world.
He said the federal government developed GIFMIS and Remita Platforms for payment for goods and services adding that, “there was the need to educate and enlighten NYSC Finance Officers on various internet-related dangers and challenges and also fashion out robust ways of protecting networks, programmes and devices from attacks or unauthorized access in order to sustain confidentiality and reliability in the net.”
