Appin West Africa opens shop in Lagos

Information Technology (IT)-based security outfit, Appin West Africa, has opened shop in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of the nation to serve its sub-regional market.

Regional Director, Appin West Africa, Mr. Dare Ojo, made this disclosure in a chat with newsmen at the end of a one-day interactive session with stakeholders on ‘Emerging Trends in e-Security,’ and presentation by the Director of Appin Group, Mr. Rajat Khare, in Lagos.

Mr. Ojo said that his firm is deeply concerned over the lapses in the nation’s security system and proffers that technology would go a long way in ameliorating the situation, which gave heed to Appin’s desire to launch its service in West Africa with base located in Lagos, even as the company would have presence in Ghana.

“We’re concerned on the deployment of technology for analysis of security issues,” he said, stressing that earlier that day, they have had a session with students from the higher institutions which are the critical mass either used to perpetrate evils on the society.

He pointed out that his office is already engaging security agencies, banks and stakeholders as a way of strengthening their technology deployment to curb crimes.

“We have the technology to help in monitoring crime at cybercafés in Lagos, for instance. This monitoring will be done by the Police or other agencies so designated by law,” he asserted.

Ojo maintained that with technology adequate security would be taken care of at all levels, because Appin West Africa has a proprietary solution to offer a boost.
Also speaking, Mr. Khare, noted that India and Nigeria have some similarities with their population alongside Israel.

“They have good people, but one thing in common, which is cybercrime,” he said, stressing, for instance, that most people out there thought that everybody in Nigeria is a criminal, an impression, he said, improved technology warfare tends to turnaround.

“What we are bringing into Nigeria is Value Added Service (VAS) to help in analyzing crime and related cases, which Nigeria has high density in cybercrime than India, while India is less than China.

According to him, Appin Security Group came into business to enable organizations and governments to focus on their core businesses and leave information security to core experts.

Appin’s security services have been divided into assessment, implementation and management.

On the assessment, he said, this involves activities including vulnerability, penetration testing, manual audit, black-box and grey-box audit, application security assessment and process audits and policy audits.

Also within this category, he said, are the web applications, servers, network and enterprise applications, then framework and benefits, some of which comprised quick determination of major risks, creation of basis for developing a manageable improvement plans and availing stakeholders’ confidence so as to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA of critical information assets.

On the implementation, Mr. Khare said, Appin has the wherewithal to set up an information security management system (ISMS) according to ISO 27001 requirements, which bothers on policy and process design and implementation, training and awareness, business continuity planning, disaster recovery planning and setting up security operation centres.

While on the security management aspect, the Appin’s Group director, emphasized that by using the firm’s proprietary tool for audit and compliance management, otherwise called Appin Radar, “we can manage your information security needs.”

Appin, he further said, has what it takes to monitor every single device or application on your network, “all at one time, on one dash board,” among others.

The well attended event was graced by the chairman, Appin West Africa, Chief Adeboye Badejo, who doubles as the chairman of IMTC Limited, while the managing director of Disc Communications Limited, Mr. Bayo Banjo, presided over the interactive session, whereas the chief film & video censorship officer at the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), Mrs. Bola Athar stood in for the Director of NFVCB who represented the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Mrs. Dora Akunyili, at the occasion.

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