In this media chat, the Chief Executive Officer of Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited, an indigenous information technology (IT), Sunny Ukeachu talked about how Mitiget has been able to help public sectors and financial sector in the area of cyber security and business continuity. He also made a case of challenges of power as it affects their operations and also their strides in other African nations. Anthony Nwosu captured this in an exclusive interview.
Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited is a leading Enterprise Information Security company in Nigeria, tell us more about the company?
Mitiget is an enterprise Information Security company enabling small and large organizations and business to build information management and security resilience. We help them in critical areas such as cyber-immunity by using people, process, and technological solutions. Our promise is to deliver measurable value from where we take over, minimum of 25% improvement. Just as our mission statement, we are poised to make a mark in African markets and globally by providing superior assurance and technology solutions to our customers through innovations, professionalism, and ethics. And we have done quite a bit.
Mitiget Assurance and Technology Services Limited has been into the IT ecosystem for some time, tell us more about your strides in this ecosystem?
As part of our security solution delivery, we have bundled information technology (IT ) as a leverage for businesses to create value. For instance, in delivering a secure data center or server room for our customers, we design, implement, secure and support all the IT infrastructure, be it, structured cabling for data, voice or power, physical security including CCTV, Access control, vaults, perimeter reinforcement and networking covering supply and configuration of switches, routers, firewalls and access points, the deployment of hardened IT hardware with supporting applications and services. If you are moving into a new office and need a partner to work with for your end-to-end IT and secure tech services, you cannot go wrong with Mitiget. We try to balance leading-edge technology innovation with highly skilled resources to deliver cost-effective, dependable, and adaptive IT solutions that meet or exceed our customer needs.
Mitiget is doing a lot to help organizations go paperless, tell us more about your strides in this space?
You know that our communication in Nigerian and many parts of the world are largely paper based. Many organizations have been carrying operational risks associated with storage of legacy documents with significant impacts. Many may have been exposed to looming financial and or reputational losses without knowing. Mitiget created a model that successfully helps many businesses in different industries to digitize, store and retrieve these critical documents in a controlled manner. From issuing the governance framework for effective records management to setting up a secure archive for documents within the retention period to scanning paper documents to any format, irrespective of volume, to deployment of a document management software to workflow automation. Because, we are an information security company, whenever we are implementing projects of this nature or we are hand-holding organizations through their digital transformation roadmap, protection of information asset is paramount. Apart from our projects with clients, we have also done some interventions for some past failed projects. We cannot stop until you go paperless because it gives any organization competitive advantage.
You have made tremendous strides in the public sector, tell us about these strides such as GDPR Implementation, PCI DSS Implementation, and ISO 22301 Certification?
Yes, we have enabled public sectors to come up with their digitization process and we have been on that journey with select few of them. Recall that earlier it was stated that we approach security from process point of view. That we have done helping businesses implement and comply with both privacy and security standards in Nigeria. Some examples of them that we or example, GDPR, NDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS. Apart from helping them walk-through the implementations of the requirement of each of the standards, we hand-hold them through successful certification. We do this once and hit the target for them while entrenching the culture of continual improvement. Our footprints are in financial and public sectors in Nigeria.
What about the ECOWAS Region and other parts of Africa, what are your footprint in these areas?
We have done couple of interventions for organizations in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa to help them improve maturity in their frameworks around these standards. Another area we have excelled is in the provision of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions. We are the number BCP facility provider in Nigeria. Some financial institutions use our facility to run their periodic BCP/DRP tests to ensure resilience and to meet regulatory requirement. Apart from that, both individual and corporates use our cloud-based data backup solution with cybersecurity protection for an assurance that their data is secure, and business can quickly recover at any unforeseen event.
How can Nigerian’s key into your training programs such as Cybersecurity, risk management, programming?
Mitiget Learning Academy (MLA) is an arm of Mitiget that provides cutting edge technical learning interventions and capacity building endeavors for small, medium, and large-scale enterprises both in public and private sectors in Nigeria. This was our way of helping to develop relevant skills to support our teeming unemployed and unemployable youths. All our courses are hands-on, and project driven with the objective of exposing the trainees to real-life tasks and problem solving. Those that would want to take up career in cybersecurity, risk management, python programming, web and mobile app development should make Mitiget learning Academy their starting point to build requisite capability to be relevant in the marketplace in their job of dream. We are discussing with a strategic partner, a tech incubator, to collaborate with us in identify and bring together some of our trainees who excelled and are ready to take their solutions and ideas to a startup level to nurture them. Our focus is around tech services using the skills we impart on young people.
What can you say was your greatest achievement this 2022?
Mitiget’s greatest achievement in 2022 was its deliberate stride in helping the governments at all levels to build and deliver physical security and effective surveillance to protect students and staff of schools. We use an innovative technology powered by solar system to help support government efforts in fighting the prevalent insecurity in our country Nigeria. This is apart from helping a financial institution digitize and secure more than 10 million document ranging from active to legacy ones.
What are your challenges that you face as an InfoSec firm in Nigeria?
Inadequate power supply and efficient internet are the biggest challenge tech services ecosystem faces. The cost of generating our own power stifles creativity and innovations. It drains resources that would have been channeled to spark up economic activities and foreign exchange earnings for the country. Another challenge is the lack of a skilled workforce. The ‘Japa’ syndrome has aggravated the issue. However, we see opportunities in all these.
You deploy Acronis as a cyber security solution. tell us more about it?
Yes. We have a strategic partnership with Acronis in delivering disaster recovery solutions with cyber protection. For CIOs or even CTOs, Acronis Cloud is one platform that gives a simplified management console for automation of data backup and cybersecurity. It gives rest of mind to those that value their critical data. More so, the solution is affordable.
Data Centre, Business Continuity and Disaster recovery are huge areas that you have made an impact on. How will you describe this space?
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a lot of paradigm shifts. Apart from adoption of remote working, enabling services and technologies were also adopted. In the data center space, focus shifted to hybrid cloud, solid-state storage, and sustainability measures. Demand for cloud services will continue even in the coming year. For MSMEs and large organizations conscious of protecting their data, they should think of Mitiget. We do data right anytime, any day, anywhere. We are the home of data center management expertise. Whether you need a complete design, incremental improvements, accredited servicing, and maintenance or even IT infrastructure decommissioning, we make them happen.
What are we to expect from you this 2023?
Great things are coming in 2023. Mitiget is an ambitious brand. Apart from continuing providing superior assurance and technology solutions to our customers through innovations, professionalism, and ethics, we will be a robust solution for schools to secure our children’s future. This is big and will disrupt the educational technology (EduTech) industry. Our goal is to provide exceptional and innovative solutions that enable our customers to make smarter decisions and maximize their potential.
“…That we have done helping businesses implement and comply with both privacy and security standards in Nigeria. Some examples of them that we or example, GDPR, NDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, and PCI DSS. Apart from helping them walk-through the implementations of the requirement of each of the standards, we hand-hold them through successful certification. We do this once and hit the target for them while entrenching the culture of continual improvement. Our footprints are in financial and public
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