NBCC Charges Businesses To Upscale Investment In Cybersecurity

Business stakeholders have charged businesses to upscale investments in cybersecurity speed to match or exceed speed of innovations to safeguard against cybercrime and other technological threats.

This was stated at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce & Industry (NBCC) Tech Event/ Graduation Ceremony held in Lagos, with the theme, ‘Emerging Trends in Tech and its Impact on Nigerian Businesses: Cyber Security and Data Analytics’.

Founder, CyberSafe Foundation, Ms. Confidence Staveley, said, Artificial Intelligence (Al) was making it easier for criminals to create convincing targeted phishing emails leading to a lot more business compromise attacks.

She added that cybercriminals were unleashing problems using stolen credentials and causing havoc for Nigerian businesses by breaking into multiple accounts.

Staveley emphasised the need for businesses to have the right culture and empower employees to protect against cyber threats to implement essential cybersecurity controls.

To him, “Businesses must have a cybersecurity strategy and budget in place and must ensure that their cybersecurity posture is independently validated.

“They must also know all their digital assets and which assets are most important to their business and incorporate best practices for cybersecurity into new product designs.”

Staveley also urged individuals to be careful about phishing emails and malwares they log into, saying cybercriminals have found a way to hack human beings instead of systems.

According to her, individuals and businesses must be trained to be immune to these threats and change their account passwords as much as you can to guide against account compromise.

“Do things like two steps authentication, data encryption, just do the barest minimum to prevent your information from hanging low for criminals to access. Also, hire a cybersecurity professional to analyse where you are now and where you ought to be and create a roadmap to safeguard against cybercrime,” she said.

Country Lead, Del Technologies, Mr. Abimbola Owoeye urged organisations to be aware that their business footprints were left to whatever platforms they subscribed to.

He charged Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) to leverage some AI tools to lower the costs of running a business.

“In doing this, you would need platforms that would consistently keep your data secure and you can subscribe to Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) software as better and cheaper entry for you,” he said.