Technology
Kaspersky Blocks 30,000 Malware Attacks in Nigeria, Others
By Sodeinde Temidayo David
A global leader in cybersecurity solutions and services, Kaspersky, has blocked not less than 30,000 mobile malware attacks in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa in just six months.
According to the cybersecurity company, between January and June 2021, a total of 14,071 attacks originated from Nigeria, while 10,697 malware’s were blocked in Kenya and 5,499 in South Africa.
Monitoring the African-based attacks, it was observed that system threats in Nigeria continued to increase as it trails Egypt which had a record of 19,466 cases by the number of attacks blocked.
This gives concerns as it points to how prevalent mobile threats have become in this highly connected country.
According to the latest research made by Kaspersky, Nigeria places eighth at 11.76 per cent share of users around the world, attacked by mobile malware.
The top three most prevalent malware behaviours that Kaspersky discovered in Nigeria were Trojans, Trojan-Downloaders, and Trojan-Droppers. Others included the Trojan proxy allows an attacker to use the infected device as a proxy to connect to the Internet.
A trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software which attackers can use to try and gain access to user systems.
Trojan-Downloaders, as the name implies, download and install new versions of malicious programmes, including Trojans and Adware on victim computers.
Meanwhile, Trojan-Droppers usually save a range of files containing malicious programmes to the victim’s drive, once installed.
Commenting on the report, the Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa, Mr Bethwel Opil, noted that, “Mobile malware remains a significant threat for corporate and personal users across Africa. These attacks are usually very diverse with hackers leveraging a range of methodologies and technologies to compromise victims’ devices. Trojan-Downloaders and Trojan-Droppers are especially dangerous given their potential to contain significantly damaging payloads.”
Nigerians are, therefore, advised to install cybersecurity solutions on their mobile devices.
Other additional ways users can enhance their security, is to create a strong password and the installation of apps from reputable sources.
Mobile users were also urged not to trust SMS, as mobile malware uses text messages and were advised not to respond to requests for credit card details or other private information.
To prevent attacks from proxy malware’s, web users are, therefore, advised to check their browser for the lock symbol. The lock icon in the address bar indicates that the sight is secure when entering personal data.
Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise are constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the players in the Nigerian gaming industry, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc, has appointed Ms Leticia Otomewo as its acting secretary.
This followed the expiration of the company’s service contract with the former occupier of the seat, Ms Irene Attoe, on January 31, 2026.
A statement to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday said Ms Otomewo would remain the organisation’s scribe in an acting capacity, pending the ratification and appointment of a substantive company secretary at the next board meeting.
She was described in the notice signed by the Managing Director of the firm, Mr Oyeyemi Olusoji, as “a results-driven executive with 22 years of experience in driving business growth, leading high-performing teams, and delivering innovative solutions.”
The acting secretary is also said to be “a collaborative leader with a passion for mentoring and developing talent.”
“The company assures the investing public that all Company Secretariat responsibilities and regulatory obligations will continue to be discharged in full compliance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act, applicable regulations, and the Nigerian Exchange Limited Listing Rules,” the disclosure assured.
Meanwhile, the board thanked Ms Attoe “for professionalism and contributions to the Company during the period of her engagement and wishes her well in her future endeavours.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Russian government on Thursday confirmed it has blocked the WhatsApp messaging service, as it moves to further control information flow in the country.
It urged Russians to use a new state-backed platform called Max instead of the Meta-owned service.
WhatsApp issued a statement earlier saying Russia had attempted to “fully block” its messaging service in the country to force people toward Max, which it described as a “surveillance app.”
“Today the Russian government attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive people to a state-owned surveillance app,” WhatsApp posted on social media platform X.
“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” it said, adding: “We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”
Russia’s latest move against social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram comes amid a wider attempt to drive users toward domestic and more easily controlled and monitored services, such as Max.
Russia’s telecoms watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has accused messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp of failing to comply with Russian legislation requiring companies to store Russian users’ data inside the country, and of failing to introduce measures to stop their platforms from being used for allegedly criminal or terrorist purposes.
It has used this as a basis for slowing down or blocking their operations, with restrictions coming into force since last year.
For Telegram, it may be next, but so far the Russian government has been admittedly slowing down its operations “due to the fact that the company isn’t complying with the requirements of Russian legislation.”
The chat service, founded by Russian developers but headquartered in Dubai, has been a principal target for Roskomnadzor’s scrutiny and increasing restrictions, with users reporting sluggish performance on the app since January.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, Decide, has emerged as the fourth most accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for spreadsheet tasks globally, according to results from SpreadsheetBench, a widely referenced benchmark for evaluating AI performance on real-world spreadsheet problems.
According to the founder, Mr Abiodun Adetona, the ranking places Decide alongside well-funded global AI startups, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Mr Adetona, an ex-Flutterwave developer, also revealed that Decide now has over 3,000 users, including some who are paying customers, a signal to the ability of the startup to scale in the near future.
SpreadsheetBench is a comprehensive evaluation framework designed to push Large Language Models (LLMs) to their limits in understanding and manipulating spreadsheet data. While many benchmarks focus on simple table QA, SpreadsheetBench treats a spreadsheet as a complex ecosystem involving spatial layouts, formulas, and multi-step reasoning. So far, only three agents rank higher than Decide, namely Nobie Agent, Shortcut.ai, and Qingqiu Agent.
Mr Adetona said SpreadsheetBench measures how well AI agents can handle practical spreadsheet tasks such as writing formulas, cleaning messy data, working across multiple sheets, and reasoning through complex Excel workflows. Decide recorded an 82.5% accuracy score, solving 330 out of 400 verified tasks.
“The result reflects sustained investment in applied research, product iteration, and learning from real-world spreadsheet workloads across a wide range of use cases,” Mr Adetona told Business Post.
For Mr Adetona, who built Decide out of frustration with how much time professionals spend manually cleaning data, debugging formulas, and moving between sheets, “This milestone highlights how focused engineering and domain-specific AI development can deliver frontier-level performance outside of large research organisations. By concentrating on practical business data problems and building systems grounded in real user environments, we believe smaller teams can contribute meaningfully to advancing applied AI.”
“For Decide, this is a foundation for continued progress in intelligent spreadsheet and analytics automation,” he added.
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