Technology
Nigeria Has Only 3,500 Cyber Security Experts—Report
**As Telcos, Financial Firms, Govt Agencies Lose N288bn to Cyber Frauds
By Adedapo Adesanya
A report by the Africa Cyber Security Report on Nigeria has revealed that various entities and individuals collectively lost a total of $800 million (N288 billion) to cyber-attacks in 2018.
According to the report, which was unveiled Monday in Lagos, financial services companies, government institutions, telecommunication firms and financial technology companies operating in Nigeria, among others were the major victims of various Internet criminal activities.
This figure showed an increase of 27 percent in cyber crimes trend in 2018, compared with $649 million lost in the previous year in 2017.
The report was launched by Demadiur Systems Limited at a Nigeria Cyber Security Summit in Lagos on Monday which focused on the theme “Combating the Global E-fraud.”
Highlight of the report indicated that in Nigeria, during the period under review, had just 3,500 skilled cyber security professionals and this amounted to a shortage of necessary skilled force at senior management and mid management levels.
The report also showed that 70 percent of companies in the country are going to face talent shortage of cyber security professional in 2019 and beyond as the human resources arms of these companies face the constraints of lack of technical experience and lack of certifications in cyber security on the part of those they intend to employ.
The report also revealed that organizational spending in cyber security increased by 17 percent from 2017 as respondents spent above $500 million dollars in 2018.
While presenting the report at the cyber security summit, President, Demadiur Systems Limited and President, Medallion Communications Limited, Mr Ikechukwu Nnamani, noted that the money spent by most of the companies were for corrective measures and not for preventing attacks.
According to him, “Most of the companies did not take security serious until after they are hit. Then, they start taking remedial actions with fire-brigade approach, and when vendors show up to arrest the situation, they charge them huge sum.”
Meanwhile, the report further shows that there was a 21.3 percent increase in the number of reported cyber-crime incidents to the police in 2018, noting however that only 2.6 percent of such cases led to successful prosecution of culprits.
According to Mr Nnamani, despite the increase, the reported cases were still small given that there was a large amount of cyber security perpetrators in the country.
He noted that findings by the report hinged victims’ apathy to report cyber-attacks on factors such as feeling of shame, especially by financial institutions, lack of confidence in the judicial system, ignorance, greed which automatically makes the victim guilty of his own action, lacking trust in the forensic investigation system in the country, among others.
The 2018 report also showed that during the year, locally engineered malwares were on the rise, fraud through mobile platforms multiplies and targeted phishing attacks took to the high side.
Since most companies can now see the handwriting on the wall that the cyber-attacks on their operations are not ready to subside anytime soon, they recorded about 50 per cent increase in involvement of their board members on matters of cyber security.
Mr Nnamani said, “To ensure that the result of our survey and research provide a nationwide representation of the state of the cyber security, we interviewed several people within Nigeria, who numbered 300.
“The respondents included those in legal advisory, government, financial services, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, healthcare services, cyber security, insurance and academia, all represented at randomly varying percentages,” he noted.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
A leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing firm, NVIDIA, has made an undisclosed investment in Cassava Technologies.
NVIDIA joins Cassava’s impressive roster of investors comprising Econet Group, British International Investment, DFC, Finnfund, Fund for Export Development in Africa (Afreximbank/FEDA), Gateway Capital, Google LLC, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Public Investment Corporation and Royal Bafokeng Holdings.
Cassava operates across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America through a strong portfolio of business units comprising Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Africa Data Centres, Liquid C2, Cassava.ai, and Sasai Fintech, all of which are leaders in their respective sectors.
The organisation will continue collaborating with its partners and customers on the continent and beyond, establishing it as a leading technology company of African heritage.
“Cassava is Africa’s leading technology company, driving the continent’s digital transformation with digital infrastructure and digital services.
“Securing this investment is an important milestone that we expect to unlock additional value from and catalyze the further expansion of our digital infrastructure and services to bridge the digital divide on the continent,” the chief executive of Cassava, Mr Hardy Pemhiwa, stated.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
To deepen access to smartphones and digital services for underserved communities, Airtel Africa Foundation has joined forces with others to train some persons in Rwanda.
This aligns with Rwanda’s ambition to become a knowledge-based economy and complements national programmes such as Connect Rwanda.
The organisation is collaborating with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) and Cisco on capacity and digital skills development under the Digital Transformation Centres (DTC) Initiative.
The parties will bridge the digital divide and promote digital inclusion by providing free Internet connectivity and digital skills training to underserved communities in the country, in connection with the advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
ITU will provide digital skills training content to the DTCs under the Initiative along with other ITU regional capacity development activities. In addition, ITU will facilitate networking opportunities related to promoting digital literacy and inclusion, which will enable access to expertise and best practices.
It was disclosed that Airtel Africa Foundation, through Airtel Rwanda, would equip DTC locations with routers, Wi-Fi and data packages at no cost, ensuring the effective rollout of training and access to digital educational platforms.
According to the chief executive of Airtel Rwanda, Mr Sujay Chakrabarti, the collaboration marks a significant step forward in bridging the digital divide and empowering Rwandan youth with digital skills.
He described the partnership as “a powerful example of what happens when government, private sector, and international organizations come together to empower communities.”
“This partnership reflects our commitment to supporting national development goals and closing the digital divide through meaningful collaboration,” said the Head of Programs at Airtel Africa Foundation, Ms Esi Asare Prah, said on behalf of the chairman of the foundation, Mr Segun Ogunsaya.
“We are honoured to partner with ITU to bring this vision to life and contribute to Rwanda’s journey toward becoming a digitally empowered society,” he added.
Also, the Regional Director for International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr Emmanuel Mannaseh, said, “Our partnership with Airtel Africa Foundation begins in Rwanda, where we are joining forces to strengthen digital skills in underserved communities to advance connectivity. This initiative lays the groundwork for broader regional collaboration, as we aim to expand this work to other Digital Transformation Centres across Africa.”
On his part, the chief executive of Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA), Mr Antoine Sebera, said, “What we are seeing here today is partnership in action. Statistics show that 900 million people in Africa remain unconnected, extra effort needs to be made to make sure that no one is left behind.
“This positions Rwanda a step ahead by being intentional to involve the youth. These centres are going to play a transformative role in educating the youth to leverage AI. Digital Transformation is driving the world and Africa or Rwanda cannot be left behind.”
By Faridat Yusuf
OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has launched a new web browser called ChatGPT Atlas, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and is said to be a big competition to Google Chrome and other browsers.
The new browser, which was announced on Tuesday, aims to change the way people search and browse online. Instead of typing keywords like on Google, users can just talk to ChatGPT inside the browser, and it will summarise information or even do tasks for them.
According to Reuters, OpenAI already has about 800 million weekly users on ChatGPT, and with Atlas, the company is now trying to bring AI into people’s daily internet use.
Atlas allows users to open a ChatGPT sidebar in any browser window to summarise web pages, compare products or even analyse data from websites.
Business Post gathered that there is also an “agent mode” for people who pay for the premium version of the service. This feature lets ChatGPT perform online tasks, to make “improvements that make it faster and more useful by working with your browsing context.”
During the demo, OpenAI developers showed how ChatGPT used Atlas to go on the Instacart website and add items to the cart all by itself.
For now, the browser is available globally on Apple computers (macOS), but OpenAI says it will soon release versions for Windows, iPhones, and Android phones.
Experts say Atlas could become a serious challenge to Google Chrome, which currently controls about 71.9 per cent of the global browser market. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares drop by 1.8 per cent after the announcement.
Google, which has majority of the online search market share, has also been trying to improve its browser using its Gemini AI model, which is now part of Chrome for US users.
Analysts believe OpenAI’s new browser might later start showing ads, which could make it compete directly with Google’s advertising business.
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