http://allafrica.com/stories/201407300373.html
BY PRINCE OSUAGWU
AllAfrica.com
30 JULY 2014
Unless quick measures are put in place, your digital wallet, particularly
the payment cards which you so much treasure, may sadly be like the
proverbial basket used to store water. If recent developments are anything
to go by, only God will prevent hackers from being smarter than you.
Do you know why? Microsoft server 2003 and 2003 R2, which supports the
platform, will come to the end of their life circles by July 2015. This is
a normal support life cycle policy for Microsoft.
The implication of this expected development is that over 25 million
electronic payment cards issued by 23 Nigerian banks could be at risk of
malicious and targeted attacks by cyber criminals.
With unconfirmed reports that banks in Nigeria, already lost N40 billion
to online fraud cases in 2013 alone, when Microsoft's extended support
period for these products cuts off, next year, which means that there may
not be updates and patches for combating security issues, loss of
compliance and regulatory certifications for banks, vulnerability may
widen.
Industry practitioners have also expressed fears that the end of support
period will also mean that support on applications and programmes will
come to an end for any organisation, datacentre or server running this
Operating System (OS) after the stipulated date.
This lack of compliance, according to them, may come with a huge risk for
local financial services partnership with global Payment Platforms like
Visa, MasterCard among others.
Meanwhile, of the 25million e-payment cards in circulation, 18 million
were issued by Verve, a local card operator, which has over the years
built up strategic partnerships with MasterCard and Visa, for various
co-branded cards.
However, all hope is not lost for organisations that are proactive. Chief
Executive Officer, Wragby Business Solutions & Technologies Limited, Mr
Gbenga Iluyemi, admitted that the end of Windows 2003 support life circle
will impact on payment platforms that run on the Operating System, but
added that it is only if they did not quickly migrate to the latest
version.
[...]
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