Journal of Emerging Trends in Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT

Cybersecurity Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) play a critical role in strengthening national cyber resilience through coordinated incident detection, analysis, response, recovery, and cyber threat intelligence. Despite Nigeria's growing investment in national cybersecurity institutions, empirical evidence regarding the operational maturity of its Cybersecurity Emergency Response Teams remains limited. This study evaluated the operational maturity of CERT practices in Nigeria using a convergent mixed-methods research design. Data were collected from 21 purposively selected participants comprising personnel from the Nigeria Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT), sectoral CERT representatives, constituency organizations, and international cybersecurity experts. Semi-structured interviews, structured capability assessment instruments, and document analysis were employed to generate qualitative and quantitative evidence. Qualitative data were analysed using Framework Analysis, while quantitative capability assessments were analysed using descriptive statistics. The evaluation was guided by ISO/IEC 27035:2023, the NIST Computer Security Incident Handling Guide (SP 800-61 Revision 3), and the FIRST CSIRT Services Framework.

The findings indicate that Nigerian CERTs demonstrate moderate operational maturity in incident detection, triage, and coordination but exhibit comparatively lower capability in proactive threat hunting, cyber threat intelligence integration, malware analysis, and post-incident organizational learning. Fragmented institutional coordination, limited information sharing, shortages of experienced cybersecurity professionals, inadequate funding, and insufficient technological infrastructure were identified as major constraints affecting operational effectiveness. The study further reveals that although Nigeria has established important institutional mechanisms for cybersecurity incident response, significant improvements in governance, workforce development, collaborative information sharing, and continuous capability improvement are necessary to achieve alignment with international best practices.

The study contributes to cybersecurity governance literature by providing an empirical evaluation of CERT operational maturity in Nigeria using internationally recognized incident response frameworks. The findings provide evidence-based recommendations for strengthening national cyber resilience, improving institutional coordination, and enhancing cybersecurity incident response capabilities across critical sectors.

Keywords: Cybersecurity Emergency Response Team; CERT; CSIRT; Operational Maturity; Incident Response; Cyber Resilience; Nigeria; Mixed Methods