Collaboration Crucial for Cyber Security in West Africa's Capital Markets

Haruna, thank you so much. Pleasure to have you in the show today. Esther, always happy to be here. Always good to have you in the studio. Yes, I always enjoy it. Let's get right to it. Now, why, I mean, this is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Why is it particularly important for you to be here? Well, I'm here because I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. I'm a cyber security expert. Thank you for sharing this Cyber Security Awareness Month. Why is it particularly important or significant for West African capital markets? Let's start there. So let's start from if you look at boards generally today, whether you're a manufacturing company, whether you are a finance company, whether you are any type of company that does business today, there is automation of some sort that happens in your office, whether it's the, if you like, the trend of manufacturing, whether it's the automation that happens in the finance industry where we are, connectivity is significant. Now with connectivity comes the risk of cyber security. And this conversation we're having is actually happening in every board. I don't know a board that sits and if they ask them, what's your biggest challenge, what's your biggest risk, they will tell you it's cyber security. Now if you're not having that conversation in your board, you should go and evaluate your board. And it's very simple. You have a phone that connects. Today you do almost everything on your phone, whether it is book an airline, book a hotel, do transfers with your banking app, and all of those things. What you have is the enhancement of technology use in our systems. Now with that comes the trust issue. Do I trust that whatever I'm doing, first it's safe, it's secured, and it's doable every time I need it? Right. And the risk of that is cyber criminals who take advantage of this connectivity and begin to perpetrate issues that affect us directly or indirectly. So for us in the capital market, being a CSD, the trust element of our markets are actually CSDs because we do post-trade. So when you trade, we have to settle clear and ensure that all of the back end that happens is secure and safe. Now as we also build our own systems, we are also interconnected with members, intermembers, exchanges, custodians, registrars, even by an extension, investors. We have taken the leadership to say as we interconnect, we must bring to mindset to everyone that yes, it's good to automate, yes, it's good to connect, but you must have on the back of your mind the issue of cyber security. You must protect, preserve, and ensure that whatever happens is secured. Which is why it's Cyber Security Month and we in partnership with the Office of National Security Advisor who, if you remember, the cyber security law domesticates in their office. So for the first time we said, you know what, let's partner, let's bring this awareness campaign to our ecosystem and hence our participation in ensuring that we bring it to the forefront of discussions for everyone to understand that cyber security is actually important. For the CSDs, outside of your partnership with NSI, those you partner with, you obviously take care of your own back end, your own side of things in terms of protecting your channels and all of that, but how confident are you that your partners are also up to speed? I know that obviously you do engage in all of that, but there's always that, are they up to speed as we are? Can we go to bed at night? Very good question. I like people to ask that kind of question because it's very important. So we have standards, so we build APIs. APIs are how we connect to the back end, to other service providers, fintechs and all of that. We have standards that we say, you must meet this standard for you to have connectivity with us. But guess what? Even when you meet those standards, you are as weak as your weakest link. So if they are compromised in some form, we get affected even though we have built resiliency and firewalls, but it's important that those standards are there and that's why we are talking about it, ensuring that everybody is aware that cyber security is important and they help build those resiliencies themselves. Haldo, in terms of cyber attacks in capital markets, first of all, I wanted to ask about the scale in terms of what has been happening, what you've seen. I know that's a bit of a sensitive question also, but just to give us an idea of how that, first of all, and secondly, how it differs from other sectors when we're having the issue of cyber attack in a capital market. So, you know, funny enough, I used to talk to a few people. I was at four years ago, three years ago, I can't remember. And then there was this former director of FBI who then was the chief, they call it CISO, that's the guy that runs their own security office. Chief security officer. Something like that, right? So he said that in Citibank, in a year they get about 4 billion attempts within their systems. Now, he says that's not a lot, but if you look at it globally, it's huge. Now, what happens is that criminals, cyber criminals actually collaborate. We don't. So you only know you're hacked if you find out. Many people sit down, people are in their systems, they don't know. So to tell you that everybody knows what's happened, it's highly unlikely that you know until something triggers something to happen then you now know you're hacked. The issue is, we don't collaborate. When people get hacked or attempted to be hacked, they don't come out and say, by the way, some people are at my back door doing some of this. But the criminals, they collaborate. So we need to start collaborating, share information so that those experiences that you have, you share with people, and then they also learn to protect themselves. Nobody talks about it in Nigeria, and that's one of the discussions we're going to have to put on the table. It's okay that you're hacked. You've solved it. Come out and teach us that this shouldn't happen to you. We hardly do it. But there's a lot to get around because it's sort of stigmatized, and there's the issue of trust even going forward. How does a company get around the stigma and all of that? So it's again about competing awareness. There's nothing wrong with having a disease. You go to a doctor, he kills you, right? You also learn. So the next person comes, you do it. But you discuss it with your doctor, right? So we have to learn to be disclusive about these issues, which is why I think legislation will help. You must disclose that things have happened to you. If you like, regulators now know how to deal with it and share the information with you. A few financial institutions actually have some communities where they share these things without having to publicly get it out. But it's important that we continue to collaborate as institutions, because the criminals do. We must do it. That's a very interesting point, the fact that the criminals do collaborate. I wish we had more time, but we do not. Well, I'm going to have to leave it there. But thank you so much, Jalu. It's been a pleasure talking to you today. I've been speaking to Haruna Jaluwazui, CEO of Central Securities Clearing System.

From market manipulation to data breaches, Haruna Jalo-Waziri, the CEO of Central Securities Clearing System believes there's a need to sustain the stability and growth of capital markets in West Africa. He joins CNBC Africa to discuss the role of collaboration in driving a more resilient financial ecosystem.

Developing cyber security framework for West Africa’s capital market

From market manipulation to data breaches, Haruna Jalo-Waziri, the CEO of Central Securities Clearing System believes there's a need to sustain the stability and growth of capital markets in West Africa. 

Developing cyber security framework for West Africa’s capital market

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