By Margaret John
The Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Cross River State, Mrs. Rosemary Archibong has called on Cross Riverians to be more security conscious and proactive in their use of communication devices to avoid falling victim to cyber crimes.
She made the call while addressing participants of the 103th edition of the Consumer Outreach Program (COP), organized by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) earlier today (Thursday) at the Dome, Calabar municipal in Cross River State.
Mrs. Archibong who stated that, “Youths and women are the most vulnerable sets to cyber crime”, called on all to be aware of the activities of cyber criminals as “it is a lot easier to commit cyber crimes than the traditional crimes.”
She also called on telecommunication service providers to liaise with the media in order to aid in creating more awareness to consumers about trending cyber crimes, harping on the need for them to “have a more robust partnership with the media; let the media be engaged to create awareness on the effects of cyber crimes and how to curb them.”
The event which was tagged “Mitigating the Effects of Cyber Crimes; The Role of Telecommunication Consumers” was initiated as an avenue for telecommunication consumers to engage the service providers on their services as well as a means of educating the consumers on the effects and prevention of cyber crimes.
Available at the event were the MTN, GLO, AIRTEL and 9Mobile representatives who were there to answer questions pertaining to their various operations as well as inform the public about how to prevent any form of fraudulent activities bearing the identity of the service providers.
The various representatives of the mobile network providers also encouraged the consumers to avoid divulging too much personal information on the cyber space in order to avoid cyber stalking, impersonation, fraud and another cyber related crimes while interacting with consumers present.
Free recharge cards of all network was given to the fastest finger.