There Is Need For Banks, Security Agencies To Educate Senior Citizens About Cyber Security, Rotimi Onadipe Advises

Rotimi Onadipe is a renowned advocate of cyber security. He is the Executive Director of Onadipe Technologies and founder of internet safety magazine, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preventing online dangers through public awareness, education and effective counseling. Additionally, his organisation rehabilitates cyber criminals, victims of fraud and people that are addicted to social media.

Onadipe is a contributor to several news platforms and his advocacy work has helped many users globally to avoid falling victim to cyber crimes, online scams and other online dangers.

In his weekly broadcast on Saturday, Onadipe noted that more elderly people are now rushing to banks to download mobile Apps for easy online payments but many of them do not have sufficient information about how they can avoid falling victim to cyber crimes e.g. password hacking, phone spoofing, debit card fraud, cyber spying, computer virus, phishing scams, website spoofing, among others.

He said: "I visited some banks recently and saw the rate at which senior citizens are eager to download mobile Apps for online payments but I didn't see any of them who asked about how to avoid the risks involved in using the mobile Apps. I was surprised to see an elderly man in the banking hall that wrote his debit card details and other sensitive information boldly on a piece of paper.

"This is the major reason why internet fraudsters are more interested in defrauding senior citizens. They are aware that many of these aged people have little or no knowledge about how to protect themselves online and they are careless about their personal identification number (PIN), one-time password (OTP) and other sensitive information.

"We must be informed that awareness about cyber safety is a strong weapon that we can use to win the war against cyber crimes in our society of today," Onadipe said.

According to him, banks and security agencies such as The Nigeria Police Force, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), among others have important roles to play in raising awareness and educating the aged people about how they can avoid falling victim to cyber crimes while using mobile Apps, internet banking and other online channels for payment of goods and services.