The Federal Government has commenced the training of Information Technology (IT) Administrators of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs’) to protect government networks against unauthorized access.
The 5-day training on Technical and Organizational Drill on Data Protection Measures is being organized by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) in Abuja.
The training is an intense hands-on capacity building programme to equip technical personnel in government institutions with practical skills required to implement appropriate measures in line with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA), 2023.
Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner of NDPC, said that with digitization being part of human lives, lots of breaches up to the frequency of once in 39 seconds was expected to happen, hence the need to develop human capacity to mitigate them.
“In every 39 seconds, a breach will occur and the lose runs to billions of dollars globally, whereas poor human capital has been identified as the major cause.
“One of the major initiatives that we have put in place to combat, mitigate the effect of data breaches is the training of IT personnel in MDAs.
“Even at the level of the EU, 94.7 per cent of breaches are related to lack of skilled personnel and that’s the average globally and it is even more in Nigeria.
“Looking at the way we have been attacked in the recent months, we find it really important for us to create awareness among network administrators, data protection officers, making sure they know what they need to put in place to prevent attacks,” Olatunji said.
According to him, it is important they are trained in terms of technical and organizational measures to ensure they protect their networks and protect their database from unauthorized access.
The commissioner stated that if organizations fail to protect their networks, it could lead to financial losses and reputation damage.
“Those who attack networks, do it for several reasons, maybe to embarrass the government, for financial gains or for the fun of it.
“What we are trying to develop here is to have a team of cyber warriors that protect government networks against any unauthorized access and attacks of cyber criminals,” he said.
Olatunji also mentioned that plans were underway to extend the training to Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Agencies, adding that they were in discussions with the Head of Civil Service of the Federation.
According to him, we want to have the training in a top-to-bottom approach and that will enable the heads understand data protection measures and it will be easy for them to approve steps, budgets on data protection.
He added that the training was targeted at achieving their Strategic Roadmap and that of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, as well as the Renewed Hope Agenda.
“We want to ensure that we develop globally competitive human capital in all sectors of this country.”
Dr Tolu Pius-Fadipe, Head, Training Committee and R&D, said they were working towards human capital development and to foster a culture of responsible data management.
“The purpose of this technical organizational measure drills for government agencies, is to test, validate and improve your ability to protect sensitive public data and maintain critical services during crisis,” she said.
Mr Babatunde Bamigboye, Head, Legal Enforcement and Regulations, said, the cost of data breaches annually was about 23 trillion dollars globally, adding that an average company would lose about four million dollars.
Bamigboye said that data protection parameters included principles, accountability, rights of data subjects, auditing, management of data, ethics and education on data protection among others.
NAN reports that more than 60 MDAs are participating in the training.(NAN)
