NITDA to Unveil Framework for Software Testing

In a move to rid the country off of substandard software, the National information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) will roll out some check lists to serve as framework for software design in the country as well as foreign.

This was made known in Lagos at workshop organised to deliberate on standards for software testing in the country.

Dr. Vincent Olatunji, acting director general of the Agency, who was represented at the Workshop by Mr. Olayinka Adejube, director, South West Zonal Office, stated that the objective of the workshop was “actually to exchange ideas with professionals so that at the end of the day we can have a document that we can use to benchmark software testing in Nigeria.”

He informed the practitioners that NITDA has set up a testing centre to encourage software testing, as well as providing platform for practitioners in Nigeria in various companies like banks, Insurance companies, Pension companies and most financial companies that use various software that were not actually tested because they don't have Practitioners to use the infrastructure and certified whatever software they had procured.

According to the Ag. DG, the guidelines on software penetration testing standards is important to domesticate software certification in Nigeria adding that the guidelines on penetration testing standards would also help in software quality assurance.

He advised the professionals to get ISO certification to ensure global best practice in software testing in the country adding that such certification would translate to job creations.

In his remark, Barrister Lazarus Ikoti, director, Standards Guidelines and Regulations, said the Agency identified the importance of framework for software testing which necessitated its being included in 2016 budget.

He said, “The framework is to see to it that the software that we have in this country are properly tested so that we can know whether they can run on our existing infrastructure. Government has spent so much money in the process of purchasing software but can't continue to spend money on something that does not bring result.”

“It is important to set up a framework not only for software that is being developed in this country but also to test the software that are imported into the country. It is only in Nigeria that there is no proper regulation guiding this. This is not possible in other parts of the world. Creating a culture of software testing will protect our IT industry thereby also creating jobs,” barrister Ikoti assured.

He expressed that the motive behind the workshop is for the practitioners to enjoy the benefits of the framework by testing the software and monitor its testing to ensure that they can effectively run and work on existing infrastructure adding that the framework would not restrict practitioners to software testing alone but to also know what they were expected look out for via a checklist to be adopted after this workshop.

Delivering a paper titled leveraging Software Penetration Testing For National Cybersecurity Assurance, Lead Policy Architect on National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy, Mr. Olusegun Olugbile stated that the recent wave of high profile data breaches and Internet of Everything attacks has put the nation under pressure to ensure that her system are secure and data protected.

He maintained that the dynamism of cyber threats has made a coordinated approach in addressing the various vulnerabilities more imperative than ever before adding that that the security checklist would protect the National Critical Information Infrastructure.

Mr. Olugbile commended NITDA for providing the Pentest centre to checkmate cyber attack and putting in place mechanism that would help to provide regulatory compliance which were in conformity with the relevant technical knowledge on software quality control standards.