Expert Blames Fundamental Flaw in IP for Cyber- Attacks
DR .ADEWALE Obadare, co-founder, Digital Encode, has attributed activities of cybercriminal on the super-highway to fundamental flaws in the internet protocol.
He explained that the internet is structured in a Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet protocol (TCP/IP) which is the protocol that is powering the internet.
“Unfortunately that protocol is not designed for security because internet was designed for communications but now we are using internet for a lot of things including sensitive transactions. But because of the fundamental problem of lack of security which is an afterthought for internet, cyber criminals who are aware of this basic flaw of internet are exploring that vulnerability that exists to attack.”
Obadare spoke on the calamities and tragedy that came with Covid-19, said: “What we need to understand is that with the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic, there is massive usage of internet technology. A lot of people that were not using the internet before started using it. This means that there is an increase in the usage of internet activities and so everything has become electronic.
“Looking at the dangers, we have to look at it from three perspectives namely; personal security which has to do with the end user, business security and national security.
“As a result of lockdown, a lot of individuals are working from home
so there was a shift in focus for hackers to end users because they are not security conscious and their devices are vulnerable.
“From statistics there were more attacks on individual devices and government infrastructure than corporate devices during Covid-19”.
He explained further that any device can be digitally evaded if there are issues with four factors which include architecture, design, implementation and operation.
“Most of the times there is always issues with any of these four factors. It is either your architecture is bad or you have issue with your design or you have issue with the way you have implemented your technology or how you operate the device, which build inherent vulnerability within our systems and hackers take advantage of issues like these and brake into systems and cause havoc”.