The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has said that some Nigerian bank workers actively partner with cybercriminals to breach banking systems and aid cyberfraud.
He recently revealed that at least 6 commercial banks in Nigeria have been targeted in coordinated cyberattacks in recent times.
Speaking during an interview on TVC, he shared that the attacks were aided by insiders within the financial institutions who intentionally granted hackers access to key banking portals.
“These criminals are not operating in isolation. Our investigations show that they often rely on information or access provided by people within the banking system who understand how the portals work,” he said.
The EFCC chairman disclosed that the anti-graft agency has successfully recovered huge amounts linked to these cyberattacks, confirming that N9.7 billion, N6.7 billion, and N3.7 billion have been retrieved for several banks affected by such schemes.
According to him, the involvement of bank employees in cybercrime is a serious cause for concern as far as Nigeria’s financial sector is concerned.
He urged banks to work on strengthening their internal controls and security systems, emphasizing that the EFCC will keep finding and prosecuting any bank worker caught supporting cybercriminals, regardless of their position or affiliation.
“What people do is to get a device. When they plug it into the banking digital system — in connivance with insiders, the bank staff — wherever the other persons are, even if they are outside Nigeria, they will be able to control the platform of the bank.
The person can then move money — in a second, they can move billions.
What they do now is that they won’t move the money out completely. They distribute it to the accounts of many customers. They have access to those accounts. From those accounts, they move the money to wallets or POS terminals and withdraw the funds,” he said.
