The explosion of Information Technology in Nigeria has meant that more people have access to internet connection and other innovative IT solutions, but this has brought its own ills.
Two years ago, the Internet Crime Report ranked the country tops among the African countries from which fraudulent credit card transactions and other forms of cyber-crime originate. The local parlance for the perpetrators of these cyber cons is “Yahoo boys”.
All that is needed for start-up is between N300 and N500 for an all-night internet access at a cybercafé or even a dial-up connection, a second rate laptop from the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos and a handful of software. As the con man toils all-night, setting traps for gullible citizens while they are asleep; he goes to sleep in the day, expecting to wake up to a harvest in form of money, in local and foreign currencies, saleable items like computers, or the PIN of somebody’s ATM card.
Bolade Akeem, a resident of Ibadan, recently fell victim of these fraudsters. “I lost my one month salary to ATM fraud,” he said while narrating his predicament to NEXT.
“I do hear about Yahoo boys, but I don’t know how they operate. The way they operate is secretive because victims do not talk about it, probably because doing so reveals their palpable vulnerability,” he said.
“I responded to an email, purportedly from Interswitch, which said I needed to update my ATM card details. I didn’t know such email is rampant until I spoke out and other people started relating their own experiences,” he said.
“Should every victim narrate his/her experience exactly the way it happened, many more people will not be entering it and the ‘yahoo business’ will be heading moribund by now,” said Mr. Akeem.
Indeed, more young people are taking to the practice, either on a part-time or a full-time basis, as revealed by the manager of a Lagos Island-based cybercafé who spoke to NEXT on the condition of anonymity.
Evil partnership
“It’s difficult to run a profitable internet cafe in Lagos without the patronage of these boys,” he said, adding that “many Yahoo boys are unemployed. Some of them quit after getting regular source of income. At least I know about four that have quit.”
From a list that included secondary school leavers, undergraduates, and unemployed university graduates, he deduced that more than poverty, idleness and lust for “quick money” are the reasons given by some of the boys he had spoken to.
According to Mr. Akeem, the fertile avenue for the business of internet scam remains the public cybercafés.
“The latest strategy, I learnt, is that they (scammers) liaise with some cybercafé owners and plug a particular device into computer systems. The device records any entry made on popular e-commerce and email websites, including credit card number and PINs,” said Mr. Akeem.
Solution
“We are being forced to embrace the ‘e-trends’ – e-payment, e-banking, e-this and e-that without a plan for e-security. These scammers can easily link up with their pals overseas for advanced scamming technology. This ‘Yahoo business’ is dynamic and has gone international,” said the cybercafé manager.
However, Mr. Akeem suggested that the best protective measure is to be wary of unsolicited emails and use trusted internet network on a trusted computer equipped with latest protective software. “And the only computer you can trust is your own,” he added.
Jide Awe, an IT expert and founder of Jidaw.com in a website post on cybercrime, listed some of the internet fraud schemes as those perpetrated through e-mail, chat rooms, message boards, or websites.
According to the him, fraudsters are taking advantage of the speed and easy accessibility of the internet, cheaper to use fraudulent, deceptive “spamming” e-mails to dupe unsuspecting victims and the anonymity that the internet sometimes offers.
Mr. Awe urged security agencies to be equipped with the skills, know-how and the insight necessary to fight cybercrime effectively.
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