The Federal Government plans to roll out a new cybersecurity framework this year to curb rising AI-driven cyberattacks on banks, businesses and government agencies.
This is according to a statement by the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi.
The move comes amid growing concerns that rapid digital adoption across Nigeria’s financial and public sectors has outpaced existing cyber defences.
What NITDA said
According to Abdullahi, the cybersecurity framework, expected to be implemented later this year, will require organisations operating in Nigeria to meet minimum cybersecurity spending thresholds.
He said many companies currently underinvest in cybersecurity because they assume they are unlikely targets.
The framework will also introduce mandatory timelines for reporting data breaches, systems for sharing threat intelligence between the public and private sectors, and coordinated response protocols for major cyber incidents.
Authorities, he said, are tightening cyber defenses as artificial intelligence accelerates both the scale and sophistication of attacks on banks, payment platforms and government networks globally.
Backstory
Nigeria’s planned framework follows a global shift toward stricter cybersecurity regulation. From the European Union to Africa, regulators are introducing tougher breach-reporting requirements, mandatory risk controls and deeper information-sharing obligations as cyber threats intensify.
- The urgency is heightened in Nigeria due to the country’s fast-growing digital economy, which is home to major fintech companies such as Flutterwave and OPay. While these platforms have expanded financial access, they have also increased the country’s exposure to cybercrime.
- According to a 2025 Nigeria Cybercrime Assessment by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Nigeria lost an estimated N1.1 trillion across banks, telecommunications companies and government agencies between 2017 and 2023.
The report noted that losses have continued to rise as attacks become more complex and cryptocurrencies are increasingly used for money laundering.
What experts are saying
Bloomberg reports that the financial sector in Nigeria saw a 150% surge in AI-driven attacks last year, the chief executive officer of Prembly, Lanre Ogungbe, a cybersecurity firm specialising in digital identity and compliance solutions for financial institutions, said.
- Deloitte has also warned that ransomware and phishing attacks are expected to increase across Nigeria as more services, payments and records move online.
- The firm said tools and techniques once reserved for cybercriminals are now widely available, making attacks easier to launch and harder to detect.
- A chief information security officer at a leading Nigerian bank said AI is now being used to craft highly personalised phishing messages, scan systems for weaknesses and identify high-value targets, allowing attackers to bypass security controls and spread breaches more quickly across banks and fintech firms.
Ogungbe added that Nigeria’s instant payment infrastructure has become a key vulnerability, as near-real-time transfers leave little room for fraud detection. He said systems now have only seconds to analyse large volumes of data, distinguish legitimate transactions from AI-driven malicious activity and block suspicious transfers before completion.
What you should know
In 2021, the Federal Government launched the National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy to provide overall direction for protecting the country’s digital space.
- The policy sets out broad principles for coordinating cybersecurity activities across government and outlines how institutions and citizens should respond to and deter cyber threats.
- It is meant to guide national efforts against cybercrime and strengthen resilience, but it does not impose specific, enforceable operational requirements on all organisations.
- At the sector level, the Central Bank of Nigeria has previously issued risk‑based cybersecurity guidelines for financial institutions, requiring banks and other regulated entities to comply with minimum standards to protect systems and customer data, recognising that rising cyber threats demand stronger defences.
As part of Nigeria’s push to strengthen cyber defenses, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is developing a cybersecurity framework for the telecommunications industry to safeguard Nigeria’s rapidly growing telecom sector, which has expanded from fewer than 500,000 lines in 2001 to more than 172 million active subscribers and 141 million internet users.
