Cyber Fraud, Causes and Its Effect on Money Deposit Banks

Abstract

The study examined cyber fraud, causes and its effect on money deposit banks (DMB) in Nigeria: a study of Zenith Bank. The main objective is to examine electronic frauds, causes and its challenges in the banking sector. The study is hinged on two hypotheses; 49 branches; sample of 557 staff. Structured questionnaire was used to capture the response of the bank staff and it was analyzed using statistical package for social science version 27 (SPSS). Descriptive statistics and multiple regression were employed in the data analysis. Among the findings were accounting fraud by bank staff, identity theft, money laundering, phishing, pharming, computer virus, lack of oversight function,lack of standards, financial loss, absence of national central control, lack of credible infrastructure, porous internet, lack of national functional database, and inadequate awareness by bank customers were the challenges militating the effort towards curbing the cyber fraud in the banking system in Nigeria. The findings also revealed that cybercrime reduced productivity; vulnerability of banks Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems and security audit. The study recommends adequate antivirus and antimalware software technology and the use of multi-factor authentication, use of biometrics, automatic logout are the solutions identified to curb cybercrimes in banks. The study concluded that the place of security in the cyber space of banks in Nigeria cannot be oversemphasied, therefore necessary measures should be put in place towards mitigating cybercrime in Zenith Bank. Equally, Zenith Bank should employ stringent measures to monitor staff activities especially in the confidentiality of customer information, cyber security audit should be done on regular basis, sensitization of bank customers, and Multifactor authentication, biometrics and automatic log out, and strong firewall should be adopted by Zenith Bank.