igeria and the United Kingdom (UK) have joined forces to combat rising cyber-crime as part of a broader strategic partnership between the two countries.
This was stated during a recent high-level roundtable meeting in Abuja, which focused on strategies for combating cyber threats and strengthening Nigeria’s digital resilience.
The event, held at the Office of the President’s National Security Adviser, drew industry specialists from both the public and private sectors.
Kashifu Inuwa, director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency, led the discussion and emphasised the significance of strengthening Nigeria’s cyber security infrastructure.
He stressed that Nigeria’s cyber security resilience is critical for both national security and economic development.
According to Inuwa, by encouraging partnership between Nigerian and UK businesses, the initiative intends to strengthen Nigeria’s cyber security resilience and open up new opportunities for growth.
In the same vein, James Carroll, the British High Commission’s West Africa cyber lead, called for collaboration at an event hosted by the Ministry of Communications, Innovations, and the Digital Economy and sponsored by Galaxy Backbone and the World Bank.
Caroll said: “The UK’s strategy focuses on engaging its young, tech-savvy population to teaching digital skills, promoting cyber security careers and creating a digital pipeline.
“Nigeria, with its youthful demographic, can adopt similar approaches like educating kids on cyber security, encouraging tech enthusiasm and developing digital literacy.
Cybersecurity ecosystem
The Data Security Council of India has forecast that the cybersecurity ecosystem will expand up to a point where nearly one million professionals will be required by 2025. Additionally, the demand for cloud security skills is estimated to grow by 115% between 2020 and 2025, representing almost 20,000 job openings, Narayan added.
An extensive exercise in reskilling and/or upskilling the existing workforce, believe staffing experts, is one of the ways that telcos can future proof their work.
Indian mobile phone operators are expected to at least double their investments on network security with the 5G roll out expected to spark a surge in network vulnerabilities, which assume critical importance especially for enterprises.
However, it is already proving to be a challenge for telcos to have robust security teams.
“Even if we do not talk about 5G (specifically), the security talent in general in the country is very sparse at the moment. We need to get more (security) professionals in the system”
Bharti Airtel, for example, has been preparing for 5G roll out by upskilling its professionals and offering them certification courses such as CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) and CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional). The courses are offered based on skill and eligibility level free of cost.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system helps you collect, organize and analyze client information. This process allows you to build and maintain relationships with your existing customers and find potential new customers. Many businesses rely on cloud-based platforms, such as Salesforce and Hubspot, to manage their client relations as their businesses grow.