Pricing Guide · Nigeria
How Much Does Cybersecurity Cost for a Business in Nigeria? (2026 Price Guide)
Cybersecurity services for Nigerian businesses range from ₦80,000/year for basic firewall and endpoint protection to ₦500,000+/month for a fully managed security service. A one-off security audit costs ₦150,000–₦800,000, penetration testing ₦300,000–₦2,000,000, and NDPA alignment setup ₦200,000–₦600,000. Where you fall depends on how much you run and how deep the work goes.
Last updated June 2026, by the Inventrium (IBSS) team, Lagos
The price ranges here are typical market prices across Nigerian providers, from public price lists and our own experience of the market. They are a guide, not our quote. Our own prices are on our service pages, and you get a fixed price before we start. Prices last checked 12 June 2026.
Cybersecurity costs for Nigerian businesses (2026)
These are realistic market ranges for professional cybersecurity services in Nigeria in 2026. A quote far below them usually buys a quick scan and a template PDF. It won’t tell you what to fix first.
| Security service | Typical cost | What it covers | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Security audit / vulnerability assessment | ₦150,000 – ₦800,000 (one-off) | Review of network, systems and settings, and a report that ranks each weakness and says how to fix it | Any business that wants to know its current exposure |
| Penetration testing (pentest) | ₦300,000 – ₦2,000,000 (one-off) | A simulated real attack on your network, web applications or staff, with a detailed findings report | Businesses with internet-facing systems, fintech, regulated industries, or enterprise clients who demand it |
| Managed security / MSSP monthly retainer | ₦100,000 – ₦500,000/month | 24/7 monitoring, threat detection and response, firewall and access management, regular vulnerability scanning, incident handling | SMEs and mid-market businesses without an internal security team |
| Endpoint protection (antivirus / EDR) | ₦3,000 – ₦15,000/device/year | Malware, ransomware and phishing protection on laptops, desktops and servers, managed from one console | Every business with company devices |
| Firewall setup and management | ₦80,000 – ₦400,000/year | Hardware or cloud firewall configuration, traffic rules, VPN setup, ongoing rule updates and monitoring | Any business with a local network or remote workers |
| Staff cybersecurity awareness training | ₦50,000 – ₦200,000/session | Phishing simulation, password hygiene, social engineering awareness, NDPA data handling obligations for staff | All businesses. Human error is the leading cause of breaches in Nigeria |
| NDPA alignment review and setup | ₦200,000 – ₦600,000 (one-off) | Gap analysis against the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, policy drafting, DPO appointment guidance, NDPC registration | Any business that collects customer, employee or third-party personal data |
| Incident response (emergency) | ₦500,000 – ₦5,000,000 | Containment, forensic investigation, malware removal, system recovery, breach notification support | Businesses actively dealing with a breach or ransomware attack |
Inventrium managed protection: ₦350,000–₦900,000/month; security reviews at a fixed project fee.
Inventrium shows you every cost before work starts, with no hidden fees. See our cybersecurity and managed security service for what’s included.
Why Nigerian businesses are a growing target
More Nigerian business now happens online, and criminals have followed the money. Four things raise the stakes in 2026:
- CBN and NITDA rules. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s cybersecurity framework and NITDA’s guidelines set security duties for financial services firms and businesses that handle a lot of data. Falling short brings sanctions and damages your name.
- The Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023. This law replaced the NDPR, and the NDPC enforces it. You must report any breach of personal data within 72 hours. Fines can reach 2% of annual gross revenue or ₦10,000,000, whichever is greater.
- More ransomware and payment fraud. In business email compromise, attackers pose as your CEO or a supplier and redirect payments. It is now the costliest cybercrime for Nigerian SMEs. Ransomware groups target more mid-sized companies across West Africa, because most have no plan for an attack.
- Remote and hybrid work. Staff now work from home on personal devices, home Wi-Fi, apps IT never approved and weak VPN settings. Each one is an easy way in that barely existed five years ago.
What a basic security baseline looks like for an SME
You do not need an enterprise security budget to protect your business. Every Nigerian SME should have at minimum:
- Protection on every company device. Managed antivirus or EDR on every laptop, desktop and server. Windows Defender on default settings is not enough. Budget ₦3,000–₦15,000 per device per year.
- A firewall that is set up for you. It controls what comes into and goes out of your network, whether it is a box in your office or a cloud service. Budget ₦80,000–₦400,000 per year for setup and management.
- A second sign-in step everywhere (MFA). Email, banking portals, cloud services and admin accounts should all ask for a code as well as the password. This alone stops most stolen-password attacks. It costs very little, because it is mostly a settings job for your IT person.
- Regular backups, stored off-site and tested. If ransomware locks your data, a clean offline backup turns a business-ending event into a bad day. Test a restore at least once a quarter.
- Staff training at least once a year. Phishing emails are still the most common way in. One session costs ₦50,000–₦200,000. Staff learn to spot suspicious emails, handle passwords and report problems, and far fewer mistakes get through.
- A basic data protection policy, written with the NDPA in mind. Even one page on how you collect, store and delete customer data meets a basic NDPA duty. Large clients notice it too.
A typical 10-person office can put all of this in place for under ₦500,000 a year. One ransomware incident costs many times more.
What it costs to skip cybersecurity in Nigeria
Compare ₦200,000 for an audit with the likely cost of an incident, not with zero. This is what a successful attack costs:
- Emergency incident response: ₦500,000–₦5,000,000 to contain, investigate and recover from a serious breach.
- Ransomware recovery: Even if you refuse to pay, rebuilding locked systems from scratch, with the downtime and lost data, often costs a mid-sized office more than ₦2,000,000.
- BEC financial loss: Payments redirected to attacker accounts are rarely recovered. Nigerian businesses lose hundreds of millions of naira to BEC annually, with individual incidents commonly in the range of ₦1,000,000–₦20,000,000.
- NDPA fines: A reportable data breach can bring NDPC fines of up to 2% of annual gross revenue. That can be far more than any protection would have cost.
- Damage to your name: More large and government clients in Nigeria ask for evidence of your security before they award a contract. A breach can shut you out of their tenders for years.
So the real question for most Nigerian SMEs is which protection gives the best return for the risks they actually face.
Frequently asked questions
A security audit or vulnerability assessment for a Nigerian SME typically costs between ₦150,000 and ₦800,000 as a one-off engagement in 2026. A small office network with a handful of devices sits at the lower end. A multi-branch firm with public web applications and cloud servers sits at the higher end. Expect a report that lists each weakness, how serious it is and how to fix it. A pass or fail verdict on its own is not enough.
Yes. Attackers now target Nigerian SMEs because they know most have no defences. The common attacks are fake emails that redirect payments (business email compromise), ransomware sent through phishing emails, and stolen logins for banking and payment platforms. The Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023 also puts legal duties on businesses of every size. A breach can bring regulatory fines on top of the money lost and the damage to your name. Basic protection costs far less than recovering from an incident: strong passwords, protection on every device, staff training and regular backups.
The Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 replaced the NDPR and is enforced by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC). It applies to any organisation that collects or processes the personal data of Nigerian residents. The main duties are a data protection policy, a Data Protection Officer (DPO) if you process data at scale, a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) for high-risk processing, and reporting breaches within 72 hours. A one-off review and setup with a qualified firm costs ₦200,000–₦600,000. That covers a gap analysis, drafting the policies and NDPC registration where required. Some managed security retainers include ongoing NDPA work.
Antivirus is a lock on the door. Managed security is a security team. Antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR) software runs on each device and blocks known threats on its own, for ₦3,000–₦15,000 per device per year. A managed security service provider (MSSP) does much more. Its team monitors your whole setup 24/7 and looks for threats the software misses. It also manages your firewall and access, scans for weaknesses and responds when something happens. An MSSP retainer in Nigeria costs ₦100,000–₦500,000 per month, depending on how much you run.
Act within the first hour. (1) Take the affected computers off the network: pull the cable or turn off Wi-Fi. (2) If you suspect ransomware, don’t switch servers off, because that can destroy evidence. (3) Call your IT provider or an incident response firm straight away. (4) Keep the logs, and don’t delete or overwrite anything. (5) Tell your bank if bank accounts or payment systems may be affected. (6) If someone has accessed or copied personal data, the NDPA requires you to report the breach to the NDPC within 72 hours. Emergency incident response in Nigeria costs ₦500,000–₦5,000,000, depending on how bad it is and how much you run. Prevention costs far less.
Yes. Our security service page shows our naira price range, and this guide shows the wider Nigerian market for comparison. Every project still gets a fixed price after a free 30-minute call.
Get a fixed cybersecurity quote
Tell us what you run, and we’ll send a clear list of the work and a naira price, with no obligation. We’re based in Lagos and work with businesses across Nigeria and Ghana.