The Chairman of the Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of Nigerian Financial Institutions, CCISONFI, Mr Festus Amede has called on stakeholders in the cybersecurity sector to collaborate to check the activities of cyber criminals.
Delivering his opening remarks at the annual CCISONFI Conference held in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital under the theme; Cyber Resilience in a Disruptive World; Mr Amede warned that cybersecurity should be treated with all seriousness from design to boardroom decisions.
He noted that the conference theme was an opportunity for members and other stakeholders to “rethink how to secure our systems, train our people, update our processes and policies and partner better with other financial and security agencies.”
Mr Amede further called for the inclusion of cyber security studies in Nigeria’s educational curriculum noting that;” the next generation of defenders was already here and just needed the right tools and mentorship”.
The keynote speaker, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s director of Payment System Policy, Mr Musa Jimoh, appealed to participants to develop cyber resilience as part of their defense mechanisms to ward off attacks and cyber threats.
Mr Jimoh noted that; the main strength of any country or sovereignty was their financial and military data whose strength and
Potency can be threatened by cyberattacks.
In his own intervention, the Director, National Cyber Coordination Security Centre, NIGCERT, Office of the National Security Adviser, Mr Bello Hayatudeen, represented by Daniel Onyekpeze, restated the call for collaboration among stakeholders in building resilience against cyber attacks and cyber criminals.
Another keynote speaker at the CCISONFI Conference; the National Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji noted that cyber threats grew in an unprecedented scale and organizations faced challenges in protecting their data in 2025 and warned that cyber resilience was now essential in businesses.
The Commissioner of Police in-charge of the Nigeria Police Force Cyber Crime Centre, Ifeanyi Henry Uche who addressed the conference challenged the Chief Information Security Officers, CISOs of banks and other Financial Institutions to report cases of cyber threats and attacks on their systems including insider collaborators.
He disclosed that in 2024; “508 cases of cyber crimes was reported, 751 suspects were arrested while 8.8 billion naira was recovered from cyber criminals “.
In a presentation entitled; Innovating With AI Responsibly, Securely and Ethically”; an expert in strategic AI Governance and Data Privacy, Mr Tahir Latif noted that Generative AI can boost productivity, automation and insight but is also prone to misuse, breaches, bias, and can undermine trust.
Latif urged the cybersecurity experts to develop new defenses to check new cyber threats aimed at disrupting their daily operations.
Sunny MacDickson Samuel, a cybersecurity expert who delivered a paper titled; How CISOs Can Sleep Well at Night?, challenged CISOs to continually validate their systems against intruders and other cyber criminals.
He reminded them that they were not sleeping well because their networks were open, prone to attack and unwanted infiltration due to lack of updated information security systems.
The conference attracted participants from within and outside of Nigeria.
Topics of other papers presented at the conference included; Fighting Financial Fraud Using AI by Ziv Cohen; Cyber Resilience by Rex Mafiana(CEO Flexi Group); From Trust to Threat: Navigating Insider Risks Amid Global Instability by Shibu Thomas(CFO Everfox, USA); Cyberfraud Fusion: The Future of Digital Security and Fraud Prevention by Rebekah Moody
