CYBER CRIME AND ITS EFFECTS ON NIGERIAN BUSINESS

Within the last decade, the use of the Internet in Nigeria has grown so rapidly with the explosion of Internet Sendee Providers (ISPs), Internet cybercafes and access points. This has had swcral positive impacts on the social, economic and educational sectors in the country. Unfortunately, the countiy's image has also suffered as a result of the nefarious activities of some Nigerians, who instead of utilizing the Internet for constructive purposes; turn it into a cheap channel for the perpetration of criminal activities. With Nigeria venturing into cashless society, there is a need for cyber crimes menace to be minim ized if not completely eradicated. This paper seeks to find out the curses of the scourge in cyber crimes, its effects on the economy and how to combat the evil. We adopted an expo factor descriptive methodology in the research. We found that Cyber crime involves using computers and Internet by individuals to commit crime. Cyber terrorism, identity theft and spam are identified as types of cyber crimes. The study identified some of the causes of cybcrcrimcs to include urbanization, unemployment and weak implementation of cyber-crime laws. The effects of cybcrcrimcs on organizations, the society and the country in general include reducing the competitive edge of organizations, waste of production time and damage to the image of the country. We recommend that firms should take reasonable steps to protect their IT infrastructure like networks and computer systems; government should assure that cyber crime laws arc formulated and strictly adhered to and individuals should observe simple ndcs by ensuringantivims protection on their computer systems.