Felix Navaga, managing director of CyberPro Group.

Cameroon has increased its efforts to combat a surge in cryptocurrency-related scams, phishing, identity theft, and other cybercrimes, which have taken an aggressive turn.

The government has increased its efforts to train police officers and prosecutors in cybercrime and cybersecurity, digital evidence gathering, child online safety, social media security, personal data management, digital evidence classification, and domain name litigation.

According to the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC), which held a capacity-building workshop last week in Garoua, it was critical to provide law enforcement officers with the necessary skills to collect and analyse digital evidence in order to efficiently investigate, track, and prosecute suspected cybercriminals.

According to Bouba Djama'a, ANTIC's director of studies and ICT development, cryptocurrency-related scams are quite common in the country, accounting for approximately 52% of cybercrime instances documented in 2023, with damages estimated at 1.1 billion francs CFA (almost $1.9 million).

Djama'a said the most common method employed by hackers is to trick potential victims into believing they will profit handsomely by investing in bogus cryptocurrencies.

The victim is then duped into opening an account on a fake site and making an initial significant deposit via e-wallet payment. Subsequently, the victim is denied access to the platform and his or her savings are stolen.

According to ANTIC, the number of phishing attacks is increasing exponentially as banks adopt electronic services.

Felix Navaga, managing director of CyberPro Group, a Canada-based IT services company, believes Cameroon is facing several emerging cybersecurity challenges as a result of rapid technological advancement, which frequently outpaces the pace of implementation of corresponding cybersecurity measures.

“Establishing effective regional cybersecurity frameworks and partnerships is crucial but can be challenging due to geopolitical and technical barriers,” Navaga noted.