Professionals in the cybersecurity industry across various sectors have called for effective information sharing collaborations among Nigerian organisations to tackle cybersecurity challenges.
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Experts in their various summations at a special industry roundtable with Chief Information Security officers in Nigeria held in Lagos with the theme: Cyberwarfare: Winning the raging war, observed that the increasing damage that cybersecurity issues pose to organisation’s bottom-line had brought cyber risks to the top of the agenda for many executives and boards today.
Rakiya Mohammed, chief information security officer, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in her keynote address, said it was important that organisations know their capacity to prevent, detect, respond and recover from cyber-attacks, adding that every company had been or would be impacted by cyber risk.
Adedoyin Odunfa, managing director, Digital Jewels, while moderating the panel discussion, observed that the damaging attacks, suspicious digital communications coming at an increasingly and alarming frequency nationally, regionally, globally had brought cyber risks to the top of the agenda for many executives and boards today.
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She advised that organisations must move beyond fear and confusion with regards to cyber attacks to taking actions that are deliberate, intentional and impactful to mitigate against imminent threats and recover seamlessly.
Harrison Nnaji, chief information security officer, First Bank, stated that organisations must understand their digital ecosystem and build a response that cut across the ecosystem.
On their part, Ighoakpo Eduje and Abumere Igboa, representing Heritage Bank and Stanbic IBTC, respectively, on the panel, agreed that there was significant improvement in awareness among boards in organisations when it comes to cyber security, adding that the issue of cyber risks remained top on the agenda and called for a buy-in and total involvement of all within the organisation to ensure cyber resilience.
Rakiya Mohammed in her presentation at the event opines that organisations need to upscale their cyber Army Training & Retention, Situational Awareness, Background Checks, IT Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Testing strategies to prevent such attacks and manage them appropriately whenever they occur.
Speaking on what cybersecurity best practices that could be adopted by public and private sector organisations, Bharat Soni, Chief Information Security Officer, Guarantee Trust Bank maintained that a minimum baseline mandatory practices should be adopted by all organisations in alignment with regulatory, industry and global standards to stay safe in the cyber space.
Harrison Nnaji pointed out that whatever digital layout the board of organisations decide to create for users must take into consideration the technology part, third party involvement, the interface and the perimeter in order to build a response that cut across a strategy within an ecosystems alongside sustainable operational and tactical plans.
On what is considered the greatest source of risk today as far as cyber risk is concerned for the financial Services industry, Olufemi Fadairo, Head Industry Security Services, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems, identified compromised employees as a key risk factor as well as data infiltration.
“Knowledge keeps growing and if organisations must cover the steps of cybersecurity breaches in order to prevent attacks, they must keep improving daily, otherwise, people will be the biggest risk”, he said. In addition organisations need to appreciate the value of their recognizable assets to ascertain the level of protection to be provided.
They however, called for robust governance structures with high level collaboration with security agencies in dealing with cybersecurity matters through engagement and capacity development and also an enterprise wide risks view approach in addressing such issues.
The event was put together by Digital Jewels, Africa’s leading information value chain consulting and capacity building firm in collaboration with Information Security Society of Africa (ISSAN) to promote pragmatic ways to ensure full transparency of cyber risks and highlight practical ways to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from cyber attacks when they occur.
