The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stated that there is an urgent need to develop innovative strategies to curb increasing cyber risks, which could potentially harm the confidence, integrity and efficiency of the capital market.
According to a statement by the Head of Corporate Communications of the SEC, Efe Ebelo, the Director General of the SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, who said this during the Central Securities Clearing System Cyber Securities conference recently, stated that the importance of Cybersecurity to the financial sector needs to be underscored because people’s hard-earned income and other financial instruments are saved and invested in it.
He said: “In the Nigerian capital market, we clearly take issues on cybersecurity very seriously due to the increasing volume of data and information that are stored electronically, coupled with the increased adoption of digitisation and digitalisation options in processing market transactions on a daily basis.
“Today, more of our market activities are conducted through the use of technology than ever before. While this has significantly raised efficiency levels, it has introduced our market’s exposure to a new set of risks, including cybersecurity risk, which we must recognise and manage.”
The SEC boss stated that the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated the activation of business continuity plans through remote operations, has further increased the rate at which stakeholders embrace technology and underscores the critical need to protect our systems from existing and potential threats that are present in cyberspace.
While appreciating the efforts of the Federal Government, through the Office of the National Security Adviser, in developing the National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy 2021, he disclosed that the SEC is developing policy and regulatory responses to emerging cyber risks in its rules and regulations on capital market activities and products that leverage technology, as well as in the Minimum Operating Standards for capital market operators, for which clear provisions for cybersecurity have been made.