As West Africa navigates the dual imperatives of expanding energy access and accelerating digital transformation, the demand for secure, resilient and citizen-centric power infrastructure has reached a critical point.
By Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai, regional manager: West Africa at Infobip Nigeria
With cybercrime on the rise across the continent, energy providers must modernise their systems while safeguarding citizen data and maintaining public trust.
Rebuilding digital trust starts with understanding the current landscape, especially within Nigeria’s energy framework. The term “energy sector” is broad, so the focus should be on Energy Retail and Energy Service Provision, areas where customer interaction is most direct.
Like banking, energy services are essential and widely used, with both sectors increasingly reliant on digital platforms and exposed to growing cybersecurity risks. Just as banks have built trust through secure, customer-centric systems, energy providers must adopt a similar approach.
In Africa, energy platforms are becoming prime targets by cybercrime, and even a single data breach can erode public trust. Security and transparency are no longer negotiable, they are the foundation of sustainable growth. Modernising digital infrastructure is not just about efficiency; it is about creating a trusted environment where customers feel protected and engaged.
To achieve this, energy providers must invest in secure, reliable platforms that safeguard data, improve service delivery, and foster strong relationships with users, mirroring the success seen in the financial sector.
Rapid growth and transformation
However, unlike banks or e-commerce platforms, which often have the agility and infrastructure to respond swiftly to emerging threats, the energy sector is still in a phase of rapid growth and transformation. This limits its ability to react quickly, making it particularly vulnerable to a wide range of cyber risks.
These risks include:
- Phishing and social engineering attacks targeting employees and systems
- Identity theft and data breaches, often due to internal actors or weak access controls
- Legacy systems that lack modern security protocols, increasing exposure to malware, ransomware and denial-of-service attacks
- Inadequate endpoint protection, particularly on end-user devices, which remain common entry points for malicious activity
Many of these vulnerabilities originate at the retail or consumer-facing level, where compromised devices or poor cybersecurity hygiene can expose core infrastructure. Internally, how the sector safeguards devices, educates employees and enforces compliance, plays a critical role in either mitigating or amplifying these risks.
Without a proactive, layered approach to cyber resilience, the consequences could ripple far beyond operational disruption, impacting trust, reputation and even threatening national security. Systems such as Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) add a distinct layer of identity protection within the broader security stack.
Reinforcing trust, accountability and resilience
2FA verifies users through a second factor, often time-based and device-linked, making unauthorised access nearly impossible, even if passwords are compromised. It is not just a feature; it is a proactive safeguard that reinforces trust, accountability and resilience across digital environments.
For online organisations using apps or web portals, 2FA integration is now quicker and more flexible. Customer engagement platforms and communication service providers offer APIs that connect seamlessly with existing systems, eliminating the need for complex on-premises 2FA solutions.
By adopting these APIs, organisations can offer 2FA as either an optional feature or a standard part of their service. It provides a scalable, efficient way to enhance security while maintaining a smooth customer journey.
The customer journey lies at the heart of trust. Secure, multichannel engagement, makes this journey smoother, more responsive and reliable. Customers can send secure messages, receive real-time updates, and track every interaction, giving them both control and transparency.
Elevating customer experience
When unexpected activity occurs, instant alerts build awareness and provide peace of mind. Combined with a full engagement history, this builds trust, supports audits and strengthens accountability. In the end, secure digital touchpoints do not only protect, they elevate the customer experience.
Looking ahead, the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions will drive demand for detailed monitoring and proactive alerts. This shift emphasises the importance of anticipating threats and instant responses. As digital services become more personalised, customers will expect seamless, automated experiences, requiring security measures to evolve beyond traditional 2FA to include biometrics, behavioural triggers or pre-authorised actions.
In fast-moving sectors like utilities, these trends will drive a need for robust, embedded cybersecurity frameworks that can adapt in real time. The future of customer engagement will be predictive, frictionless and secured by intelligent, context-aware authentication mechanisms, designed not just to protect, but to empower.