Cybersecurity beyond the IT department

Angola

José Carlos Figueiredo, chairman of Teleservice, talks to The Energy Year about cybersecurity readiness in Angola’s energy industry and the company’s investment and partnership strategy for growth in the downstream oil and gas, mining and maritime security sectors.

Teleservice is a private security company and a provider of risk management and consulting services.

• Cybersecurity should be governed as an enterprise-wide security risk. Treating it solely as an IT function can leave gaps in accountability, threat identification and crisis response.
• Dependence on foreign cybersecurity systems can weaken local response capacity. Energy companies need to consider data sovereignty, jurisdiction and where operational control ultimately resides.
• Technology alone does not create cyber resilience. Trained personnel, clear reporting lines, incident-response procedures and regular exercises are equally important.

What is your assessment of cybersecurity readiness within Angola’s energy industry?
Cybersecurity is increasingly critical, but its governance and implementation are still often misunderstood. One of the main challenges is that cybersecurity is frequently treated as a purely IT matter, when it should be approached as a core security and risk management function. IT departments are essential for system functionality and continuity, but identifying and addressing threats to the organisation as a whole requires a broader security mindset.
Another challenge is dependency. Many companies rely heavily on foreign cybersecurity solutions, which can create delays when incidents occur and may limit local response capacity. There are also questions of data sovereignty, jurisdiction and operational control. Cybersecurity providers often operate across different legal and geopolitical environments, and companies need to understand where their data, systems and response mechanisms are actually controlled from.
For Angola’s energy industry, the priority should be to build stronger local governance, clearer accountability and faster response capability. Cybersecurity cannot be seen only as a technical product. It must be part of a wider security culture that includes people, procedures, technology, intelligence and crisis response.
How can companies in the oil and gas and other sectors reinforce their cybersecurity capabilities and improve their risk management?
Companies need to start with governance and people. Technology is important, but technology alone does not create resilience. Cybersecurity requires trained teams, clear reporting lines, incident response procedures, regular exercises and a culture where cyber risk is understood beyond the IT department.
Investing in employee capabilities is particularly important in the energy industry, where roles are increasingly specialised and require specific training, certifications and continuous development. We view training as a responsibility of the company as a whole: failures usually reflect gaps in preparation, systems or supervision, not only individual mistakes.

What business opportunities are you seeing in downstream energy segments and in the mining sector?
Both mining and downstream energy are important growth areas for us, particularly as Angola seeks to diversify its economy beyond upstream oil and gas. These sectors are closely linked to industrialisation, infrastructure development and logistics corridors, including the Lobito Corridor. For us, the opportunity lies in investing early and positioning ourselves to scale as these sectors mature.
Mining has significant potential, especially as Angola develops resources beyond diamonds, including gold, copper, rare earths and other strategic minerals. The sector is still at an early stage, but it is expected to make a growing contribution to exports, GDP and economic diversification. We already have around 500 personnel operating in diamond mines, and we see this as a platform that can scale as governance, compliance and operational standards become more aligned with those of oil and gas. At the moment, it remains challenging to implement consistent procedures across the mining sector, but we believe this will improve as international operators, financiers and regulators raise expectations around safety, compliance, security and ESG standards.
Downstream projects are also strategic opportunities. Angola is expanding and modernising its refining capacity, including developments linked to Luanda, Cabinda and Lobito. We have been involved from early stages in protecting land, construction sites and infrastructure. Security in early project phases is critical. If it is not properly planned from the beginning, weaknesses can become much more expensive and difficult to correct later.

How important do you expect the role of partnerships with government institutions to be to your growth?
Partnerships with government institutions are fundamental in several areas. Maritime security, for example, is directly linked to offshore oil and gas operations, and collaboration with the state is essential in this space. From the beginning, our company has sought to maintain close dialogue with sector authorities, and our MoU with the Angolan Maritime Authority in 2024 marked an important step in formalising this co-operation.
It established a model of public-private collaboration that does not depend on joint ventures, but rather on co-ordinated operational support. This has already translated into practical improvements, including the sharing of real-time information between our vessels and national authorities.
Our teams report safety incidents, navigation hazards and other security risks to the national authorities responsible for maritime and port security, including matters related to the ISPS Code. We have contributed to the curtailment of unauthorised activities at sea, as well as to search-and-rescue support and the identification or removal of dangerous objects offshore. As offshore activity continues to grow, this type of co-ordination will become increasingly important to ensure safe, reliable and properly supported operations.

What are your priorities for the next three years?
Geopolitical developments will continue to influence energy markets, state decisions and investment flows, and this will shape the operating environment for security companies. In that context, our focus remains on what we can control: procedures, human capital and operational resilience. We will continue strengthening our frameworks to ensure consistency across all areas of the business. We will also maintain our focus on employee development, because people remain the foundation of reliable service delivery. In a volatile environment, companies need to make decisions quickly, recognise mistakes, correct them effectively and keep improving. That can only be achieved with the right structures, the right procedures and the right people in place.

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