Acting to its responsibility of ensuring only standard software programs are developed and in use in Nigeria, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says it has fine-tuned arrangements to introduce a checklist of to serve as the framework for software design in the country.
The framework to be rolled out by NITDA, which is ostensibly to check and rid the country of substandard software programs, will also be used a basis for testing software programs imported into the country.
The development was made known by NITDA in Lagos at a workshop organised to deliberate on standards for software testing in the country.
Speaking through the agency’s Director, South West Zonal Office, Mr. Olayinka Adejube, who represented him, the Acting Director-General of NITDA, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, who was represented at the workshop said the objective of the workshop was “actually to exchange ideas with professionals so that at the end of the day we can have a document that we can use to benchmark software testing in Nigeria.”
He informed the practitioners that NITDA has set up a testing centre to encourage software testing, as well as providing platform for practitioners in Nigeria in various companies like banks, Insurance companies, Pension companies and most financial companies that use various software programs that were not tested because of the absence of practitioners to certify such software programs before being put to use.
Dr. Olatunji informed the workshop that the guidelines on software penetration testing standards is important to domesticate software certification in Nigeria saying such guidelines would also help in software quality assurance.
He advised the professionals to get ISO certification to ensure global best practice in software testing in the country adding that such certification would translate to job creations.
In his remark, the Director, Standards Guidelines and Regulations, Mr. Lazarus Ikoti said the Agency identified the importance of framework for software testing which necessitated its being included in the 2016 budget.
“The framework is to see to it that the software that we have in this country are properly tested so that we can know whether they can run on our existing infrastructure. Government has spent so much money in the process of purchasing software but can’t continue to spend money on something that does not bring result,” he stated.
“It is important to set up a framework not only for software that is being developed in this country but also to test the software that are imported into the country. It is only in Nigeria that there is no proper regulation guiding this. This is not possible in other parts of the world. Creating a culture of software testing will protect our IT industry thereby also creating jobs,” Ikoti assured.
Delivering a paper titled leveraging Software Penetration Testing For National Cybersecurity Assurance, Lead Policy Architect on National Cybersecurity Policy and Strategy, Mr. Olusegun Olugbile stated that the recent wave of high profile data breaches and Internet of Everything attacks has put the nation under pressure to ensure that her system are secure and data protected.
He maintained that the dynamism of cyber threats has made a coordinated approach in addressing the various vulnerabilities more imperative than ever before adding that that the security checklist would protect the National Critical Information Infrastructure.
Mr. Olugbile commended NITDA for providing the Pentest centre to checkmate cyber-attack and putting in place mechanism that would help to provide regulatory compliance which were in conformity with the relevant technical knowledge on software quality control standards.