Artificial Intelligence has introduced new challenges in Cybersecurity – Expert

Mr Olatunji Igbalajobi, the Executive Director/co-Founder of cyber security consulting firm, Cybercode Ltd., says that the advent of Artificial Intelligence into the cyber space has introduced new challenges in cybersecurity.

Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Lagos on Sunday, Igbalajobi said that the advancements in AI was good but carried implications for the country.
He said that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered fraud was projected to reach 350 billion between 2023 and 2027 globally.

Igbalajobi, who is also a member, Board of Trustees, Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN), was speaking about the implications of the growing knowledge and embrace of Artificial Intelligence around the world, with Nigeria not being left behind.
Recently, June 10, 2024 precisely, a Nigerian-based company, Insolify invented and introduced Safi, an AI tool, into Nigeria.
The cyber security expert said that AI-driven attacks were more adaptable and could potentially bypass traditional security measures, adding that this evolution in cybercrime tactics made defending against these threats more complex and demanding.
According to him, there are different methods of attacks within the AI application and environment, which includes data poisoning attacks and model evasion attacks among others.
“AI poisoning attack occurs when threats actors injects malicious or corrupted data into training data sets, aiming to cause the AI to produce inaccurate results.
“Model evasion attacks on the other hand is when attackers feed the AI with contradictory examples in order to create inaccurate predictions,” he said.
The cyber security expert said that this showed that there was need to prepare for what was coming, noting that lots of cyber attacks were on the way and if care was not taken, it would result in financial impacts.
He also noted that the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) had been calling the attention of organisations in the supply chain and manufacturing industry to consider cyber security as an integral part of their organisations.
He explained that with this awareness, they were beginning to get info on how cyber attacks happened and how their industry could also be susceptible to it.
“Now, most manufacturing industries are leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) as part of their machines and using less human labour.

“A manufacturing company using AI has to know that the same way it is programmed to do a perfect job, a hacker could also carry out a malicious attack on the algorithm of AI.
“This attack could destabilise the AI from doing what it was programmed to do before, hence, industries are beginning to see the need for cybersecurity,” Igbalajobi said.
On reasons why cybersecurity adoption was slow, he said that Nigerians were more reactive than proactive, noting that most organisations waited to experience cyber attacks before doing the needful.
The expert noted that the cost of mitigating cyber attacks were usually outrageous, noting that companies ended up spending triple the amount that should have been used to prevent it.
Igbalajobi also explained that the public-private partnership sector-driven collaboration was still not where it should be, saying that the country had some international partnership with notable organisations around the world, who were trying to invest in Nigeria’s cybersecurity.
The expert said these countries, which included the UK and U.S. among others were trying to see the opportunities Nigeria and Africa at large could present in the area of cybersecurity.
He urged the government to look into the area of limited funds, access to skill and technology, skilled workforce in terms of talent shortage, continuous training and infrastructural limitations in order to bridge the gap in cybersecurity.
Igbalajobi noted the effectiveness of cyber security companies in Nigeria, so far, but said that there were still challenges.

He said that the few certified cybersecurity experts in the country are not sufficient to address the growing challenges that Nigeria faced in the area of cybersecurity.
According to him, there is no doubt that Nigeria has a growing alignment of expertise, but the challenge in the country is losing most cybersecurity experts to the western world.
“On a daily basis, we see cybersecurity experts who have been able to acquire relevant skills to be professionals and mitigate cyber threats looking for an opportunity to leave the country for greener pastures.
“Most of them opt to go abroad because the environment there is more competitive and favourable for the job.
“It is quite unfortunate that we are losing our experts to the global community,” Igbalajobi said.
He added that the number of cybersecurity professionals leaving Nigeria would increase as long as the economic, political, and social situation in Nigeria did not improve.
The cyber security expert, however, said that there were a good number of alignment with government regulatory agencies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
He noted that CBN had been helping Nigerians to grow cyber security wise, adding that if not for the regulator, the financial sector would still be scratching the surface in terms of cybersecurity.
Igbalajobi noted that the regulation CBN had put in place had helped the financial sector to be on its toes and up-to-date in protecting its institutions with cyber security programmes.
Speaking on what the Cybersecurity Experts Association of Nigeria had been doing, he said they had been fostering and championing cyber security education in terms of creating awareness.
He added that the association had also been engaging the government on best approaches to go about cyber security projects and programmes in Nigeria.
NAN reports that Nigeria has been identified with having one of the lowest numbers of cybersecurity experts, signalling a pressing need for enhancing digital security within the nation.
According to a global report, as of 2023, Nigeria had a mere 8,352 professionals, adding that “with the increasing digitisation of various sectors and the pervasive use of the internet, Nigeria faces a range of cybersecurity challenges that need to be addressed effectively.
“Cybersecurity is not a game of choice, it is the new normal. Unlike in the past, modern hackers are now coordinated, well-funded and operate like corporations.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria also noted that Nigerian financial institutions are losing millions of dollars to cybersecurity-related frauds and threats.