How to succed In Cybersecurity as a Nigerian - Presented at Bsides Kano Conference 2025.

How you doing? >> I'm good. How is everything? >> Yeah, not bad. Not bad. How How is the event going? >> Yeah, we thank God. Thank you very much for your time and uh thank you for supporting the event. Um we are part of the history I I believe because as you know this is the first time we are having it here in the north. So thank you for your time and thank you for believing in what we want to do. >> Yeah of course and yeah thanks for the opportunity as well and um you know maybe next time I'll be there physically. >> Yeah we hope so. Thank you. So I think you can just um start um I've sent the

link to all the participant uh they will be joining but for those that haven't join me we have recording that they can watch later. >> Okay. So they're going they're also joining by Zoom. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll join. Um I've sent the link to the group so they'll join. >> All right. That's fine. All right. So, um, I'm going to just share my screen. >> Okay.

>> Okay. Uh, I think you need to improve. >> Yeah.

All right. So, I'm going to be talking about, you know, how to be a world-class um talent, whether, you know, you're trying to get into cyber security or any tech um career path or maybe you've already gotten started and you want to, you know, level up your game. So, uh who am I? So my name is Ali uh not to be confused with the organizer of the event and um you know I work as a cyber security engineer um I've also you know started like uh some some startups in the past um but currently I'm focusing on uh feeasants which is a startup that advocates for and develop tools to make cyber security um more accessible

uh so that everyone can use security tools or interact with you know security mechanisms um or just do things securely in a way that doesn't um exclude certain people. Um I'm also a co-founder at Cyblack where we support um you know people from black or African background with um cyber security skills, knowledge and mentorship that they need to succeed in the field. I also volunteer at the cyber helpline as an advisory board member and um I am an advisor for Hakquara a um a cyber security community in Quir state um where we organize events you know local outreach campaigns and things like that. So what does um what does what does world class actually mean? So when you

know when when we talk about world class um some people might think it means you know being in a different part of the world or being quote unquote international. Um but at the end of the day it's not about your geographical location. It's about how how do you measure up to you know global standards. um when you look at your competence levels and the skills that you have and how you apply those skills, how does it compare on the global stage wherever you find yourself? And uh to me it's about uh it's about competence, it's about you know curiosity. So staying curious and always trying to improve yourself and it's about consistency. So you have to

remain um consistent on the path so that you can continuously you know reap the benefits of everything that you're doing and it's also about mindset. So it's about operating like I said earlier at that quality that wherever in the world you find yourself it's going to be recognized as okay this this person knows knows his or her stuff like you're really you're actually good at what you do. Um, and for most people that's going to mean like starting where you are, you know, starting locally, trying to make uh starting with yourself actually. Um, so it starts with with um building up yourself and then going to like your local community. And that local community can be physical, it can be,

you know, online or whatever the case may be. But I'm going to touch more on that. um later. So um I mean we all know the global tech landscape is quite huge and it's only getting bigger. um you know trillions of US dollars in in the digital economy um and with remote work actually there's no there's no technical barriers for anyone to be able to work anywhere in the world for most um technology technology um career paths or technology enabled career paths there's actually no physical boundaries um or technical boundaries um that stops you from working uh in any company in the world. The most of the barriers right now are compliance barriers, HR barriers, you know,

sometimes, you know, biases and things like that. But even with all those um challenges, um even with all those challenges, we still have lots of companies that recruit globally, right? Um I know quite quite a number of people that have um worked or still work for, you know, companies all around the world, you know, Canada, Malaysia, um the US, the UK, and all those uh all those countries. And the digital talent pool in Africa is growing really really fast. If you think about uh where where we are now versus where we were 5 10 years ago, it's not the same. So so much more people are interested in um tech careers and there's so much talent. There's

literally not a there's no shortage of talent uh within within Africa, right? Um it's all it's all a matter of like being able to demonstrate that talent and companies being able to find the right talent for for their needs. So what the first part of being a a worldclass talent is know your stuff like know your onions right so it's not about like I said it's not about like going to a different country like if you go to a different country where I don't know maybe the um yes most likely there might be more more opportunities in certain countries but it doesn't change who you All right. Like you're still the same person with the same set of skills. Um so actually

it's about mastering um your your arts. So uh you need to have strong fundamentals like master the core concepts of what what of the field that you're trying to get into. Um and this requires lots of patience. It requires lots of like it takes time to actually build expertise in anything, right? Um, and you need to be consistent and have a lot of focus on like your learning and your practice, not just like reading stuff or watching videos, but actually trying to do do things. And it's also very important to work on projects. Build up your practical experience. Make your projects as realistic as possible. like think about okay what I mean initially maybe initially your

projects don't need to be something that someone can use um but as the more you gain more skills you should try to make your projects as realistic as possible like I remember when I when I first got started in uh in tech I was learning about software development you know website development and things like that all My my earliest projects are not things that anybody would use are not things that I would use, right? They were very like ugly websites, very like useless applications. But they helped me to learn, you know, how how does software work, you know, how to put things together, how to actually build things. And then from there, I took that into, you know,

starting to build like real more real projects. And um on top of building building projects, you need to also you know learn from others. Um at the end of the day there's no there's no island of knowledge. Nobody can know everything. So you need to you know talk to people talk to people who have more experience than you. Learn about their experiences. Um and even your peers as well like you know keep good companies uh keep good company in terms of like surrounding yourself with people that on a similar path um surround yourself with people that are as motivated or even more motivated than you. Right? If you surround yourself with people that are not uh if you constantly surround

yourself with people that are let's say um behind you in terms of like level of like skills and competency um that's that's not going to I mean that might help you like in terms of like teaching and sharing your knowledge and things but what will actually help you advance more is surrounding yourself with people that are on your level and constantly pushing the boundaries or even people that are way more advanced cuz that will push you to like see, okay, this is actually possible and uh it'll push you to to go even further. So, I'm going to share this um video. Uh it's all about like beyond knowing your stuff. It's also about like um actually loving what you

do and being you know uh being very very much interested in what you're actually doing. People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing and it's totally true and the reason is uh is because it's so hard that if you don't any rational person would give up. It's really hard and you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So, if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it, you don't really love it, uh, you're going to give up. And that's what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at at at the ones that, uh, ended up, you know, being successful, unquote, in the eyes of society, and the

ones that didn't, often times it it's the ones that are successful loved what they did so they could persevere when, you know, when it got really tough and and the ones that that didn't love it quit because they're sane, right? Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So, it's a lot of hard work and and it's a lot of worrying constantly and uh um if you don't love it, you're going to fail people. Um so, yeah, that's that's really like um something I've also seen like personally right? um when learning something new or when trying to like do something that you're not very familiar with, um it's gets really tough, right? Like

there there are lots of like complex concepts that you're trying to get your head around, you know, projects that you're trying to make work and it's not working. Um, it's actually really very hard and if you're not very invested in it, if you're not very passionate about what you're doing, most likely you're going to say, you know what, I can't I can't deal with this. Um, you're just going to find something else to do. But the thing is, everything is hard. Everything like worthwhile is hard. You just have to pick the one that um the one that interests you the most. So that that would push you toward uh um through all the difficulties and you

know into where you can start reaping the benefits. Um another thing is you need to you know share your story as well because um no matter how good you are, if nobody knows what you're capable of, it's going to be very tough for you um in the job market or whatever you're trying to do, right? So I know not everyone likes um social media and and and things like that but it doesn't have to be on social media right it can be on social media it can be like through um other connections you know people you need to like document your project somewhere uh like some kind of portfolio of your work so that you know when you're

applying to jobs when you're talking to recruiters and things like that you have something to show them uh uh that that proves your capabilities. Um second part is you need to be known for something good like build up your reputation. You know everyone around you should know that okay this person uh is really passionate about cyber security or software development whatever it is you're trying to do so that when opportunities come uh when they come across opportunities they themselves will be the ones to like come to you and say you know here's something I think you might be interested in but if they don't know what you're capable of even if those opportunities come nobody is thinking of you at that point

to time, right? So, also don't be scared to reach out to people. Network um network with people from from different backgrounds. You know, it could be people that like I said earlier, people that are on the same level as you as well as people that are like more advanced and that way like um you're not trying to do everything alone, right? you can you you can it helps you find people that you can collaborate with for whatever whatever project that you're working on. Um also your CV needs to be very strong and showcase your achievements very effectively. Um and most likely you will need to have different CVs for different types of um roles that you might be applying for,

right? Um because usually you would have different skill sets and some roles might emphasize some specific skill sets that you have. So your CV should also reflect that. Not saying you should ignore everything else, but the ones that you prioritize on your CV should be relevant to whatever type of roles are applying for. Um and also you need to like pre present yourself um professionally right? perception plays a big role in how people treat you like how um organizations uh relate with you and things like that. So you need to you need to present yourself in a very professional way and watch what you're putting out there like cuz whatever you put out there is going to

build a picture of how people or how you know others see you. Um, so I'm going to share another video about, you know, having Audacity and being able to like take bold action.

No, I've actually always found something to be very true, which is um most people don't get those experiences because they never ask. Uh I've never found anybody that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help. I always call them up. I called up um this will date me, but I called up Bill Hulet when I was 12 years old and he lived in PaloAlto. His number was still in the phone book and he answered the phone himself. Yes. He said, "Hi, I'm Steve Jobs. I'm 12 years old. I I'm a a student in high school and I want to build a frequency counter and I was wondering if you had any spare

parts I could have. And he laughed and he he gave me the spare parts to build this frequency counter. And he gave me a job that summer in Hulip Packard working on the assembly line putting nuts and bolts together on frequency counters. He got me a job in the place that built them. And I was in heaven. And I've never found anyone who said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked. And when people ask me, I try to be as responsive, you know, to pay that that debt of gratitude back. Um, most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that's what separates sometimes the people that

do things from the people that just dream about them. You got to you got to act. And you've got to be uh willing to um fail. You got to be willing to crash and burn, you know, with people on the phone, with starting a company, with whatever. If you're afraid of failing, you won't get very far. >> Um, and this is, you know, this is very true, like you need to you need to have the audacity to, you know, to talk to people, to take action, to apply for that job even though you're not feeling like 100% confident to to reach out to that person that you think might be able to mentor you. you need to be willing

to, you know, to to fail or to receive a no. Just take some kind of action, right? Um and if it doesn't work out, you learn from it and you move to the next one. So um the next one I want to talk about is you know we talk a lot about like opportunities and preparing for opportunities or you know how you can't really control the opportunities that come for you. But what you can do is you can create opportunities for opportunities to find you. And how can you do that? Um the the guys at Y Combinator always talk about this. They call it the lock surface area. Um and it's about like trying many things or trying different

things to the point where um opportunities are able to find you. So, if you're only um if you're only trying one thing and that one thing doesn't work out, then you've kind of lost, right? But if you're trying different things, if you're doing uh different things and you are, you know, showing people what you can do, you have your strong portfolio. You have like a good online presence where you're sharing your work. like sooner or later someone is going to notice what you're doing and and they will be willing to like give you an opportunity to do something else or they'll be willing to I don't know provide funding for whatever you're trying to do

or they might be trying to like refer you to a job opportunity if that's what you're looking for right and the only way these things can can find you is uh if you create those opportunities but at the same time. You know, the first thing I said is also like knowing your stuff. So, even if you have strong online presence and someone reaches out for an opportunity, if you don't know your stuff, most likely you're not going to get it. Or even if you get it, it's not going to pan out very well because some point you're going to figure out that you actually don't know uh or or you don't have like the competence to to handle that kind of

opportunity. Um, okay. Okay, I wrote build on your online presence twice, but here is also um building your online your physical presence, right? Whether it's like going to physical events, um engaging with the community, or even like just within um your circle of like people that that you know, um make sure that they know what you're what you're capable of. Make sure that they're aware of the kind of projects that you're working on. So that you know when there's like some kind of support that you can get then try then they would even know that okay this is something that this person can can do and also try to make yourself more discoverable to recruiters and

collaborators. So, you know, I already mentioned things like your online portfolio, um, you know, making yourself discoverable on all these professional platforms, joining communities and all these things, it just makes you more discoverable. And when when someone sees like trust me you you might think you're just putting it out there but people notice um you know all those things and it creates opportunities for the opportunities you want to find you. So now huge one is to contribute like and there's literally nothing stopping you from contributing uh to anything regardless of what level um of skills that you've reached. So try to think about like real problems that you can solve. And again this can be like within

your local community, it can be within your your school if you're a student, you know. Um, I've seen lots of uh I've seen lots of like online campaigns for security awareness. I've also seen like physical campaigns um where you know they go to like schools, they go to like local communities to try and like make people aware of um online safety and things like that and fraud prevention. All these things make an impact, right? So try to think of a way that you you can actually help um other people cuz that's also developing yourself. Uh open source is another big one as well. You can contribute to like open source projects um tools and things like that. uh if

you're not if you're not a coder, you can still contribute through like you know helping to test uh different tools, providing feedback, you know, writing documentations, advocacy and and things like that. Um volunteering, this is basically the same as like making an impact. You can volunteer to different uh communities or different like nonprofits. And it doesn't even have to be a nonprofit relating to tech or cyber security. It can be just any regular nonprofits, right? There'll be things that that you can help them with, whether it's helping them to build a website or helping them to secure their um their websites or social media or even like something as simple as like documents, right? people most people use

uh most people and organizations use like cloud uh platforms for collaboration. So that kind of thing like helping them to make sure that it's properly configured and it's secure. These are things that you can do even at an early stage of your career and yeah you know share your knowledge, share your experience, teach others. Um but don't forget that we are all learners right? Um, don't try to pass yourself off as someone that's like beyond what you actually are because yeah, it might get you a lot of attention, but at the same time, it's like it's people are going to figure you out at like sooner or later, and that's not very that's not going to be good for

your long-term um your long-term career. Um, I don't know if you've you've heard about this, but there's this story that came out recently with um, University of Lagos and how they got into a partnership with uh, OpenAI and because of like the reputation that the university has that kind of attracted attracted a you know global organization like OpenAI to to partner with them. And that just uh butresses the point that you know great things can happen uh from all places like regardless of where you find yourself. You can be a world class talent wherever you find yourself. You don't have to uh you don't have to be in a different location or or in a different country um

to do that. So yeah, I just want to give you a push to go for it. Don't be scared to get a know. Um all those rejections are part of like how you grow as a professional. Um take calculated risks. Not saying you should like jump from whatever job you're currently doing and put yourself in a terrible financial situation, but there are some kind of calculated risks you can take that are kind of uh you know going to be beneficial for you and try to choose very wisely where you invest your your time and your energy because again whatever time and energy you're spending on something is taking away time and energy from other things that you could

be doing. So, you have to make sure that whatever you're doing is is going to be worth it. Um whether in terms of the impact you're going to make on others or how um how it's going to benefit you. And try to apply for positions that stretch your capabilities. So um don't don't look at job requirements and say okay you have to check 100% of the boxes before um before you're able to do it right most um most career advancements don't happen that way actually because um if if there was someone that checks all those boxes that person most likely would wouldn't be going for that role. They'll be going for something that's going more challenging to them because

they want to grow. So you should also have that kind of growth mindset when you know looking at job opportunities. So try to be world class whether you're at home or abroad wherever you find yourself. Always bring your best and be known for that. Like be known for always bringing your best. That's going to attract like lots of goodwill and lots of opportunities. And of course, be ethical. I mean, I don't have I shouldn't have to say this, but don't do anything that's unethical or or illegal. Try to always stay on the right side. Um, don't get stuck in your comfort zone because that's not that's not how to grow. Like, for you to grow, you need to

always be outside your comfort zone. And it it sounds uncomfortable sometimes. I mean, it feels uncomfortable sometimes because it's like you're struggling. But the struggling that you're doing is actually how you're growing as a as a person. And yeah, don't be scared to reach out for global opportunities whether it's like speaking, job opportunities, volunteering um and things like that. And uh yeah, I also wanted to share this like if you are looking to to move uh for better opportunities, there are programs that allow you to do that. um all across the world, you know, UK, Canada, Australia, um Singapore, UAE. But again, I I'm putting this like last because it's not about, you know, this this is not what it's

about. It's about building yourself to be um of a world class standard. And when you get there, all these things are going to be easy um to apply for because you already have uh you already have that impact. You've already made impact. You've already grown yourself to the level where you'll be attractive to all these uh uh countries or global companies. So yeah, thank you very much for listening and I really believe that your your journey starts with a s single step and um it's going to continue with you know all the um all the efforts that you're putting in all the networking that you're doing the impact that you're making right like I've seen

so many people that um that make impact on some kind of scale within their own community, right? And that like those kind of people like good things happen to those kind of people always, right? Sooner or later like their life changes because of some kind of like massive opportunity that they get. But again, it's not about um it's not about going to a different country or or like having this kind of like many followers on on social media and things like that. It's about the real impact that you're making. And if you do have many followers, use those use those things to make impact as well. Like whatever whatever assets you have at your disposal, use them to make a

positive impact on the world. And you know that should be what what matters the most. Um happy to take any questions or or comments from anyone. >> So uh thank you very much. Um I think before you even join I shared it in the group that this session is very important because I think one of the things that um people living here in Nigeria as we all know the situation some people want to learn or want to get into this field but this kind of advice that's what they are missing and they do go and start doing something else and maybe they start trying to find like a cheat code on how to get around it and I

believe this uh slide that you shared contains almost everything that uh someone who wants to succeed need because you touch on so many aspect that will help in uh achieving whatever you want to achieve in this. Thank you very much for your time and uh as you mentioned at the beginning probably next year we'll have you physically here in Can to uh gain more uh insight and uh knowledge. Thank you sir. And I think um even though we have a few minutes because we are using free version of Zoom they are telling us we have few minutes. So I think we can just take maybe one or two question if there is any quickly because the time is ticking.

If you have question just maybe >> Thank you so much sir. Hello. Yeah, just go ahead ask your question. >> Okay. Can you hear me? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you so much for the great presentation sir. My name is Abdullah. I just need the slide if possible for me so that I'll go through it again and also I want to ask a question about foreign six things. If I wanted to be a forensics examiner, what do I need first? Do I need to have a certification or to go through it in YouTube and learn a lot of >> beginning things before I >> Yeah, that's a good question. I think when it comes to forensics and I assume

you mean like cyber or digital forensics, it's about um it's going it's it's about like being very analytical and spotting patterns and being being good at like understanding um evidence, right? At the end of the day, it's about it's about understanding evidence. But before you even get to that evidence, you need some skills to be able to like go around the the technology. So for instance, if you're looking at and it it's different platforms as well, right? So if you're looking at um forensics in terms of uh like an incident response perspective, it's about you know being able to analyze malware so that you understand exactly what the malware does and you can help the security operations

team to develop better detection so that they can stop that malware from spreading around uh the environment. So there's also like forensics in terms of a law enforcement perspective where you're trying to solve a crime and some devices have been seized. You need to be a you need if you're doing Android for forensics for example you need to have a deep understanding of how the Android ecosystem works and how you know different application works where the data is stored how can you retrieve that data how can you understand the data and like point out um you know patterns and things like that so it's about um a lot doing a lot of analysis and doing a lot

of deep like research into how all these platforms work and yeah I'm sure there are a lot of videos on YouTube on how to do all those things but you need to have a lab where you can have a sandbox or an isolated environment so that you know malware doesn't like uh affect your own system that you're using. Um so yeah hopefully I've been able to answer your question. I have like 10 more minutes um after this call ends. So I can I don't know. Is it okay for me to share a Google Meet link? >> Okay. >> For anybody else that still has questions. >> Okay. Okay. >> Is there interest in that or do you guys

want to just end it here? >> Okay. I think just share the link so that maybe uh your question will be answered and also maybe they can just connect with you more because that's one of the things that I'm just trying to mention after this maybe you can just uh send you um a LinkedIn request >> so that this is just like an introduction. So for anyone that want to ask a question there is a Google minute link in the chat so you can just go ahead and um copy it. Uh we have few minutes left here. So thank you very much sir for taking your time and I wish next year um we'll have you physically

here because we definitely need people. Yeah, we have some speakers here but people like you give like um a wider perspective when it comes to cyber security because you experience it from different angle. So you get to give like as you mentioned uh geographical location is not the the issue here. You can still achieve the same thing while you are living in a certain uh area which is a different perspective. If you did not experience it, you cannot uh tell people how they can go about it. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time and uh the uh insight that you give us today. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you very much um Ali for the

opportunity and for organizing this um event. I think it's something that's really necessary. Um and yeah, thanks to special thanks to uh Imam 24 for helping me to uh to come to to develop the the slides as well. >> Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah. >> So yeah, feel if you if you want to continue the conversation, feel free to join the Google Meet. >> Yes. >> Or you can just uh connect with me on LinkedIn. >> Yes. Thank you.