Key highlights
- The Eko Innovation Centre said the forex scarcity is pushing up the costs of cyber security solutions in Nigeria.
- He said more Nigerians are using devices without protection as anti-virus becomes unaffordable.
- He said Nigeria needs to start developing home-grown cyber security solutions to secure its cyberspace.
The Founder of Eko Innovation Centre, Victor Afolabi, has said that more Nigerians are getting exposed to cyber risks as a result of the increasing cost of cybersecurity solutions. According to him the forex issue in Nigeria is worsening the situation as all cyber security solutions in the country have to be imported in the absence of homegrown solutions.
Speaking at the grand finale of the Secure Hack 1.0 event powered by Eko Innovation Centre, which was held in Lagos over the weekend, Afolabi said many individual Nigerians are resorting to using their computers without an inti-virus due to its high cost, while some businesses could not afford the cost of available cyber security solutions to protect their systems.
The cost barrier
While noting that the major challenge of technology adoption in Nigeria is the cost barrier, Afolabi said:
- “Looking at the cyber security solutions, anti-viruses that we buy, many of them are paid for in Forex and the sad thing is that they are ridiculously expensive because the dollar rate keeps going up. This cost element increases the vulnerabilities of organizations in emerging markets like Nigeria.
- “When a cyber security solution is too expensive, only few would be able to afford it and that leaves many organizations vulnerable to cyber attacks.”
Home-grown solutions need
Afolabi said Nigerians need solutions developed here either for cybercrime or physical crime that people could pay for using naira. He said that way, the country’s cyberspace would be more secure because people would be able to afford cybersecurity solutions.
Afolabi said that was why the innovation center put together hackathons like the secure hack 1.0 to encourage young talents with innovative ideas. The founder said that when solutions are homegrown, their maintenance would be easy and one would not have to start sending messages to the manufacturer unlike when it’s imported.
- “Hopefully as the Nigerian tech market matures, things would get better. 20 years ago nobody was building software in Nigeria, but today we are beginning to see foreign people using our talents. “They are now taking our talents abroad and paying them a lot of money to build solutions for global use,” Afolabi said.
He noted that soon banks and other organizations would start using locally-developed cyber security solutions when the market matures. Afolabi added that one day, Nigerian talents would build solutions that would be at par with international solutions.