Nigeria ranks among the highest-targeted nations globally for cyberattacks, industry leaders warned at a Lagos forum on Tuesday, as they pushed enterprises to elevate artificial intelligence (AI) security from an IT afterthought to a board-level priority.
The warning came at a cybersecurity forum themed “Secure Today, Resilient Tomorrow,” organised by Nigerian technology consulting and systems integration firm Quomodo Systems in partnership with global cybersecurity leader Check Point Software Technologies. Held at the Radisson Blu, Victoria Island.
The event drew stakeholders from fintech, govtech, e-commerce, telecoms, and the press to examine the region’s evolving threat landscape and explore Hybrid Mesh Architecture as a defence strategy.
Banks, Energy Giants Lean on Check Point Amid Rising Threats
Kingsley Oseghale, Check Point’s Country Leader for West Africa, told the forum that nine out of ten large banks in Nigeria currently run on Check Point’s security infrastructure, alongside major energy players including TotalEnergies, Oando Plc, and Sahara Group.
“Nigeria ranks highly globally in terms of attacks,” Oseghale said, cautioning that businesses cannot afford to relax. He noted Check Point’s year-on-year growth over the past five years reflects a widening base of customers trusting the firm to secure their operations.
Oseghale outlined a shift in Check Point’s delivery model: rather than handling implementation directly after client demonstrations, the company is now investing in intensive training for partners such as Technology Distributions Africa (TD Africa), equipping them to deploy solutions independently. He added that Check Point, with over three decades in the industry, is globally recognised for firewall solutions serving telecoms, aerospace, and defence sectors, and delivers protection through pillars including Hybrid Mesh Architecture, Network Security, Cloud Firewall, and Workspace Security.
AI: A Weapon for Attackers, and a New Board-Level Risk
The sharpest warning of the forum came from Quomodo Systems’ Chief Financial Officer, Olufunke Tonye Preghafi, who declared that cybersecurity can no longer sit in the background of corporate strategy.
“Cybersecurity is not just a boardroom conversation, but should no longer be heard at the background,” Preghafi said, urging companies to sharpen their focus on Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) as attackers increasingly weaponise AI — often staying ten steps ahead of defenders.
She pointed to a global shortage of AI-security expertise even as regulation tightens, and called for greater investment in GRC talent capable of navigating the threat landscape and shaping policy responses.
Preghafi also highlighted the deepening convergence between Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT), arguing that a disruption to operations now inevitably threatens technology systems — and vice versa. With attackers probing every entry point, she said, treating AI purely as an IT issue is no longer tenable.
“AI is now a risk and should be treated as a board-level function,” she said, warning that unsecured staff browsing habits remain a leading gateway for phishing and ransomware attacks.
Oil and Gas Sector Flagged as Growing Target
Other speakers echoed Preghafi’s call to prioritise AI security, singling out Nigeria’s oil and gas sector as an area of particular concern amid a marked rise in cyber-warfare threats and attacks against critical infrastructure.
The forum closed with a unified call for Nigerian enterprises to move toward proactive, intelligent, and resilient cybersecurity frameworks, a push organisers say is essential to protecting critical infrastructure and sustaining trust in the nation’s fast-growing digital economy.
