CCISONFI Vows to Boost Cyber Resilience in Financial Institutions

Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of Nigerian Financial Institutions (CCISONFI) has canvassed more proactive cybersecurity strategies and innovations to address evolving cyber attacks in the financial sector.

Festus Amede, chairman of CCISONFI, who made this call at the 2024 Annual Conference of the Committee held recently in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, noted that genuine technological advancement was  escalating cyber attacks on businesses and organisations, disrupting and compromising sensitive customer data.

Amede, according to a statement by his media team, however called for more collaboration among relevant stakeholders including research institutions to partner, develop and implement robust and innovative cybersecurity solutions to check cyber criminals.

He appreciated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for consistently supporting the fight against cybercrime and the risks it poses on the financial sector.

Amede said harnessing and integrating cutting edge technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, Quantum Scale cryptography, zero trust security, biometrics, behavioural analytics and cloud security, would help build a safer financial ecosystem and adapt to unforeseen threats of the future.

He said CCISONFI was an annual engagement with seasoned experts in the cybersecurity space to guide members on how to drive cyber resilience in the age of emerging technologies.

In one of the presentations  at the conference entitled ; “Insider Threats; Persistence of Hackers and Fraudsters; Michael Crouse, who is the director, User and Data Protection at Everfox (a Cybersecurity Solution Provider) said organisations must strive to understand the behaviour of their employees as a way of safeguarding any cyber threats from the inside.

He noted that Everfox has been defending the world’s most critical data and networks against complex cyber threats for more than 25 years.

Crouse urged businesses and organisations to inculcate in their employees their values and why they must be part of the solutions and on the other hand, the company must appreciate the value of the employee suggestions and solutions to the problem.

He advised companies to put in place processes aimed at improving a seamless communication from top to bottom highlighting the effects of insider threats to the company and how their actions can curb such threats.

The Insider Threat Expert also called on organisations to support troubled and frustrated employees to avoid being threats to the company by divulging critical information to hackers and fraudsters.

He disclosed that their suite of cross domain, threat protection and insider risk solutions empower governments and enterprise organisations to use data safely where and however their people need it.