The CyberSec Sessions Episode 5 - With Zechariah Akinpelu
We discuss the African Startup Market, AI in CyberSecurity and how Zechariah built his Cyber team.
It’s my pleasure to introduce Episode 5 of The CyberSec Sessions, the lightning interview series where I interview CyberSec Leaders about what they’re doing, and what they think about the Industry.
Join us today as we discuss Zechariah’s thoughts, as a CISO of Unity Bank, one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing banks.
Don’t have the time to listen? Here is an overview of what we covered.
Being a CISO of a Bank, the risks are Different
In Zecharias role at Unity Bank, the main focus is aligning the security posturing of the technology in the bank, with the business needs, as usual. He also has to focus on the reputation, because if customers don’t trust the safety and security of the banks technology, they wont put their money in it.
Where things differ to some other companies is he has to focus on the ‘very bad guys’ nation-state actors who see tackling a bank as a way to cripple infrastructure, alongside those that are just financially motivated. A bank that is technology focused and still growing attracts a varied range of attackers.
He has helped build out the security operations team from scratch, and he wants to attract and train the best talent in the region for this.
The startup scene in Africa is starting to grow
Alongside being a CISO, Zecharia often speaks at events in the African startup scene, specifically at Gitex which is one of the largest events of its kind in africa.
He feels the space is really starting to boom. There are a lot of younger generations in Africa starting to become interested in tech, and are actively learning these skills. Africa as a whole is also undergoing a tech transformation in general, across education, agriculture and the financial sector.
Gitex was formed to let these startups collaborate, but also show off to global investors the potential for talent.
More CISO’s should speak at conferences
Zechariah spoke at the Cloud and Cyber expo that I attended the other month, have a look at my previous article where I go through my thoughts and tips, in case you want to attend the next one.
I wanted to know why Zechariah was so keen on speaking at these events.
In his opinion, a lot of the CISO’s work goes on behind the scenes. If everything is going well in a security function, it is not often actively celebrated.
Many CISO’s don’t know what other CISO’s are doing as well, so being able to share that knowledge and help others with your discoveries or methodologies is really helpful.
I found this myself, but Zechariah also feels they’re great places to network, find new opinions or best practices yourself, so they’re well worth doing.
AI, or Tech Advancement in General, is the biggest problem in Cyber
Everyone at the moment is looking at how to leverage AI or Gen AI, but the criminals are doing it too to improve the variety and volumes of their attacks.
The constant evolving of cyber threats, mean as a CISO, he has to evolve faster than them.
Things like phishing scams can be AI generated, meaning the volume can be massively increased. He believes that the only way to counter this is by using AI to fight AI as traditional security tools may not keep up.
Attracting talent is all about creating the right environment
Although you can attract good talent by offering good pay, to attract the best and to keep them for a long time, it needs to be an environment that is conducive to retaining this talent.
Offering flexibility where you can, offering budgets for learning and development, and training schemes wherever possible.
Encouraging people to learn when they are busy can be tricky, so Zecharia sets asides time for his team specifically for them to learn new things, he also offers this for others in the business who may want to learn about security.
That’s all Folks
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Episode Summary. Watch the full video below for more details.
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