‘Only 65 Nigerian Companies Attained Global IT Certification Status’

Stories by Emma Okonji Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Digital Jewels Limited, Mrs. Adedoyin Odunfa, has revealed that only 65 Nigerian companies, including banks have achieved the global best practice standard certification status as at February this year.

The number of companies with global best practice for IT standard certification status appears low, when compared to the 7,207 registered companies in Nigeria, according to information on the website of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

The CAC however revealed that among the 7,207 registered companies in Nigeria, 512 are from the communications sec- tor, 1,163 are from computer and information technology sector, while 2,163 are from the financial services sector.

The abysmal low number of 65 Nigerian companies with global best practice IT standard certification, raises security concerns because of the online services that several companies offer to organisations whose data may be at risk if they do not have the standard IT certification to protect data from vulnerability.

In recent times, there have been cases where online hackers take undue advantage of weak patches on the website of most organisations to gain unauthorised entry, leading to data corruption and in most cases, loss of money.

Odunfa who delivered a paper on ‘Industry Status Report’ at a technology forum held in Lagos recently, said the global best practice standard certification status for Nigeria as at February this year, shows that 23 companies were certified with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCIDSS), while five others were in progress. For Information Security Management System (ISO 27001), 20 companies were certified, with another 15 in progress. For Business Continuity Management System (ISO 22301), four companies were certified and another three were in progress.

Five companies were certified with IT Service Management (ISO 20000), while two were in the process. For IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), two companies had evidence of full implementation while one was in the process. No company has evidence of full implementation of Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT 5), but two are in the process.

She revealed that in the banking sector, specifically for ISO 27001 certification, only nine were certified while another five were in progress, while for ISO 22301, only two were certified and four in progress. For ISO 20000 certification, only one bank was certified and two were in progress, while for ITIL standard, one bank has full