African Companies Should Treat Cybersecurity as a Board-Level Risk

African Companies Should Treat Cybersecurity as a Board-Level Risk

Cyber incidents can interrupt operations, expose customer information and damage confidence in a business. As companies rely on digital payments, cloud services, online sales and third-party platforms, cybersecurity has become a business-risk issue as well as a technical one.

Assign Clear Accountability

Boards and senior executives should know who owns cyber risk, how incidents are escalated and which decisions require leadership approval. Responsibility should be clear across technology, legal, operations, communications and customer support teams.

Start With the Basics

Many practical safeguards are foundational: multi-factor authentication, timely software updates, least-privilege access, secure backups and staff training. Businesses should prioritise systems and data whose loss would most seriously affect customers or essential operations.

Understand Third-Party Exposure

Vendors can introduce risk through their systems, access permissions or security practices. Companies should identify critical suppliers, limit access to what each provider needs and understand how incidents will be reported and managed under contract.

Prepare Before an Incident

A written incident-response plan should identify decision-makers, technical responders, legal advisers and communication leads. Exercises can test whether teams know how to isolate affected systems, preserve evidence, restore services and communicate accurately without spreading unverified information.

Test Recovery, Not Just Backups

Backups are valuable only if they can be restored within a timeframe the business can tolerate. Recovery tests should account for system dependencies, staff availability and the possibility that an incident affects both primary systems and connected backups.

Board Questions to Ask

• Which business services would be most damaging to lose?
• When were critical systems and recovery plans last tested?
• How are supplier and privileged-access risks reviewed?
• Who can authorise urgent decisions during an incident?
• How are lessons from exercises and actual incidents tracked?

Conclusion

Effective cybersecurity is not achieved through a single product or annual training session. It requires ownership, routine controls, supplier oversight and tested recovery plans. Treating the issue as a board-level risk helps companies connect technical safeguards to business resilience and customer trust.

Sources and Further Reading

• Central Bank of Nigeria
• Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework