NITDA plans software-testing framework

The need for software testing within the global world of information communication technology sector is on the rise as most software produced locally and those imported into the country are said to be vulnerable to attacks.

However, software testing is a process of executing a program or application with the intent of finding the software bugs. It allows users to validate and verify that a software program or product; meet the business and technical requirements that guided its design and development.

To this end, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) recently gathered professionals in IT at a workshop in Lagos, to discuss the importance to which software testing can help checkmate activities of software theft and alteration.

The workshop, which was aimed at seeking collaboration with public and private sectors, also sought the need for professionals to be security conscious while adopting the best practice and standards for software security framework.

Speaking at the workshop in Lagos, acting Director General, NITDA, Vincent Olatunji, said the agency is considering checklists that will form its guidelines as local requirements for software penetration testing standards in the country.

The acting DG who was represented by the NITDA South West Director, Olayinka Adejuba, said the importance of software couldn’t be over-emphasized. He described the workshop as an avenue to exchange ideas with professionals, which would enable the forum posses a document to benchmark software testing in Nigeria.

“For companies that are ISO Certified, there are processes that you need to achieve before you are awarded such certification. In order to enable the use of best practices to execute our programs and it is to the best interest of Nigeria IT firms to actually get certified.

“The reason it’s necessary to get certified at our level is because of competition for jobs as seeing how far we have gone to know how capable we are”, he said.