CRIME  Hacking is among the common cases

Sammy Kioko, Alliance Manager Africa region, has warned that cases of suspected fraudsters have penetrated electronic financial transactions in the region.Kioko said that a survey, conducted by Deloitte last year, indicates that banks in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia lose $245 million in cyber fraud.He was Tuesday speaking at a news briefing ahead of banking and cyber security workshop scheduled for Friday, in Kigali. The workshop was organised by Cyber Security Africa in partnership with industry stakeholders.  "Cyber crime is high in EAC especially Kenya, now moving to Uganda and Rwanda; we should get ready to mitigate such risks,” Kioko said. The common cases cited include hacking, malicious insiders, card skimming, electronic files manipulation, and IT controls circumvention. The one-day workshop will highlight the key IT security threats, fraud, risk and regulatory issues affecting  financial institutions, Government agencies, public and private organisations in the daily operations. Other topics to be discussed include modernising payment technology through Internet, mobile banking and the security challenges, cyber security threats for the banking sector in East Africa as well as combating financial crime."We are so lucky Rwanda is still considered safe but we have to be ready, put robust strategies to ensure a safer payment system,” said Otakar Zich, Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Switch.Robert Kayitani, the Managing Director, Secure Payment Solutions, said the company will present a paper on Paperless Signing & Comprehensive Check Fraud Prevention.The paper will look into fictitious bank accounts, forged invoices, usurpations of identities, imitations of signatures among other things.  The protection of organisations‘ infrastructure and systems from cyber threats is a key strategic priority, with cyber attack identified as a top tier risk over the next years.It is expected that, after the meeting, participants will be able to develop and implement a ‘bullet-proof’ security strategy to maintain consumer trust and promote service usage. The strategy will also identify the technical, device, network and hardware vulnerabilities that could compromise service security and understand the impact of regulatory frameworks on the mobile financial services market.Participants will also be able to look at the business risks associated with ATMs, Cards and mobile financial transactions.