LAGOS, NIGERIA — Digital Encode, one of Nigeria’s foremost cybersecurity firms, has launched an autonomous artificial intelligence platform designed to help businesses identify and test cybersecurity weaknesses before criminals can exploit them, as AI increasingly lowers the barriers to sophisticated cyberattacks .
The company unveiled DEPAS AI, or Digital Encode Penetration Autonomous System, at a press conference in Lagos on Monday. The platform is designed to move organisations from periodic, manually conducted penetration tests toward continuous, automated security assessments . Penetration testing involves authorised attempts to compromise an organisation’s systems in order to uncover vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors .
The launch comes at a critical time. According to IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report, AI-enabled breaches now account for 25 percent of all malicious incidents, marking a 56 per cent increase year-over-year . The average cost of those breaches has reached $6.04 million, significantly above the global average breach cost of $4.99 million .
“AI is now being weaponised by attackers to move faster than human teams can respond,” said Professor Obadare Adewale, Chief Visionary Officer and Founder of Digital Encode. “DEPAS AI combines Artificial Intelligence with Human Intelligence to give organisations the same speed and scale in defence” .
The platform deploys multiple specialised AI security agents that operate concurrently across an organisation’s attack surface . An agentic coordinator maintains context, analyses results in real time, and assigns follow-up tasks for deeper investigation. A separate verification agent independently reproduces each reported vulnerability to minimise false positives . The system also includes a chain-building component that maps individual vulnerabilities into potential attack chains, demonstrating how seemingly separate weaknesses could be combined to create a more serious pathway into an organisation’s systems .
DEPAS AI can test enterprise-specific applications, web applications, APIs, mobile applications, backend systems, cloud environments, and network infrastructure . The platform provides 24/7 autonomous testing and generates executive-ready reports with remediation guidance and compliance mapping .
Obadare said AI should not be viewed as an inherently powerful hacking tool operating independently of weaknesses in digital systems. Instead, he argued that the technology is accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities that already exist . “AI is not necessarily powerful because it creates vulnerabilities. What AI is doing is exposing weaknesses that already exist within systems,” he said .
He called for greater emphasis on secure coding practices, arguing that developers need to incorporate security into product design from the outset rather than relying solely on firewalls and other defensive technologies after deployment. “Secure coding means that when you are building that digital product, you are building it with security in mind,” he said .
Digital Encode said DEPAS AI is designed to go beyond conventional vulnerability scanning, which may identify a weakness without determining whether it can actually be exploited . The platform is also being customised to address vulnerabilities and attack patterns specifically observed in the Nigerian market .
As Nigeria’s financial and digital sectors continue expanding their reliance on online platforms, the amount of valuable data and financial activity exposed to cyber risk has increased significantly . The company, which has operated in cybersecurity and IT assurance for more than two decades, said its experience in the Nigerian market has shaped the platform’s development .
Digital Encode has not disclosed commercial terms for the platform or quantified its expected revenue. The company said its broader objective is to reduce successful cyberattacks by shortening the time between discovery of a vulnerability and its remediation . For Nigerian businesses, the platform aims to provide a defensive capability that matches the speed and scale of AI-driven attacks .
