THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN CURBING THE CHALLENGES OF INTERNET AND CYBERCRIME IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Information Technology has become a dynamic and extremely powerful means of collecting, processing, storing, presenting and sharing information in the developing countries. The processed information is usually presented on digital devices, and also to a large extent presented on public infrastructures such as the internet and the World Wide Web. Information Technologies have become widespread and have penetrated deeply into societies in developing countries. The proliferation of Information Technology (IT) has resulted in the change of different aspects of human life, bringing convenience and simplicity to our lives. The contribution of the internet to the development of Nigeria has had a positive impact on various sectors of the country. However, it has come with its own share of problems, which have become one of the major challenges of insecurity in Nigeria. Though it makes life so speedy and fast, but hurled under the eclipse of threat from the deadliest type of criminality termed as 'Cybercrime’. Cyber-crime consists of a variety of criminal acts perpetrated through the Internet, and includes e-mail scams, child pornography, hacking, theft of data, spamming, Automated Teller Machine spoofing, piracy, phishing, identity theft, extortion and a wide array of other nefarious activities. Amidst of these threats of insecurity with cybercrime, Information Technology still has a lot of roles to play to curb these challenges in Nigeria Development. The study sets to find out the roles of information technology in curbing internet and cybercrime.