IBM, the American multinational technology giant, has reportedly announced plans to exit Nigeria, Ghana, and other key African markets, transferring its regional operations to MIBB, a subsidiary of the Midis Group.

The move, which according to TechCabal was revealed in a statement by the company, effective April 1 2025, is part of a new operating model IBM is adopting across select African countries.

Under this arrangement, MIBB will take over IBM’s local operations, customer support, and relationships while marketing and selling IBM products and services across 36 African nations.

“MIBB will market and sell IBM products and services in 36 African countries, thereby giving MIBB’s sales network direct access to IBM products, services, and support, further boosting innovation and growth in the region,” IBM stated.

IBM has been a key player in Africa’s tech industry for decades, providing critical infrastructure for banking, telecom, oil and gas, and government services.

However, its planned exit follows a trend of multinational corporations leaving Nigeria.

In December 2024, Swiss cement giant Holcim announced its departure from Nigeria, selling its 83% stake in Lafarge to a Chinese firm.

Similarly, South African grocery retailer Pick n Pay disclosed plans in October 2024 to exit Nigeria by selling its 51% stake in a joint venture.

IBM has yet to respond to media inquiries regarding the specifics of its transition strategy and reasons for the exit.

United Kingdom has taken a groundbreaking step in the fight against child exploitation by becoming the first country to introduce specific laws targeting Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated child sexual abuse images.

The new legislation, part of the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill, aims to protect children from predators using artificial intelligence to create and distribute explicit content.

New Legal Measures to Combat AI-Generated Abuse

The UK government has recognised the growing dangers of AI technology being misused to generate child abuse material. To counter this, the new law introduces severe penalties for offenders.

Key provisions include:

Criminalising AI Tools for Child Exploitation: It will now be illegal to create, distribute, or possess AI-generated child sexual abuse images. Anyone found guilty could face up to five years in prison.

Ban on Instructional Materials: The law also criminalises the possession or distribution of manuals that provide guidance on using AI to generate child abuse material. Violators could face up to three years in prison.

Stronger Enforcement Powers: Authorities, including Border Force and law enforcement agencies, will be granted new powers to inspect digital devices of suspected offenders and prevent the circulation of AI-generated abusive content.

The introduction of these laws follows warnings from child protection organisations and law enforcement agencies about the increasing use of AI to generate realistic but synthetic images of child abuse.

Reports indicate that AI-generated explicit content involving minors has surged, making it easier for predators to evade detection.

Yvette Cooper, home secretary stressed the urgency of these measures, stating: “We will not allow technology to be used to harm children. The law must keep pace with the growing dangers of AI, and we will do everything necessary to protect young people from online predators.”

This move makes the UK the first country in the world to introduce specific criminal offences for AI-generated child abuse content. Child protection organisations, including the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), have welcomed the legislation, calling it a major step towards tackling technology-facilitated abuse.

This legislation represents a proactive approach to safeguarding children from the potential harms posed by AI-generated content and sets a precedent for other nations to follow.

Kaspersky Threat Research expertise center has discovered a new data-stealing Trojan, SparkCat, active in AppStore and Google Play since at least March 2024. This is the first known instance of optical recognition-based malware appearing in AppStore.

SparkCat uses machine learning to scan image galleries and steal screenshots containing cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases. It can also find and extract other sensitive data in images, such as passwords. Kaspersky has reported known malicious applications to Google and Apple.

How the new malware spreads

The malware is spreading through both infected legitimate apps and lures – messengers, AI assistants, food delivery, crypto-related apps, and more. Some of these apps are available on official platforms in Google Play and AppStore.

Kaspersky telemetry data also shows that infected versions are being distributed through other unofficial sources. In Google Play, these apps have been downloaded over 242,000 times.

Who is being targeted

The malware primarily targets users in the UAE and countries in Europe and Asia. This is what experts concluded based on both the information about the operational areas of the infected apps and the technical analysis of the malware.

SparkCat scans image galleries for keywords in multiple languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, Czech, French, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese. However, experts believe victims could be from other countries as well.

How SparkCat works

Once installed, in certain scenarios the new malware requests access to view photos in a user’s smartphone gallery. It then analyses the text in stored images using an optical character recognition (OCR) module. If the stealer detects relevant keywords, it sends the image to the attackers.

The hackers’ primary goal is to find recovery phrases for cryptocurrency wallets. With this information, they can gain full control over a victim’s wallet and steal funds. Beyond stealing recovery phrases, the malware is capable of extracting other personal information from screenshots, such as messages and passwords.

“This is the first known case of OCR-based Trojan to sneak into AppStore,” said Sergey Puzan, malware analyst at Kaspersky. “In terms of both AppStore and Google Play, at the moment it’s unclear whether applications in these stores were compromised through a supply chain attack or through various other methods. Some apps, like food delivery services, appear legitimate, while others are clearly designed as lures.”

“The SparkCat campaign has some unique features that make it dangerous. First of all, it spreads through official app stores and operates without obvious signs of infection. The stealthiness of this Trojan makes it hard to discover it for both store moderators and mobile users.

Also, the permissions it requests seem reasonable, making them easy to overlook. Access to the gallery that the malware attempts to reach may seem essential for the app to function properly, as it appears from the user perspective. This permission is typically requested in relevant contexts, such as when users contact customer support,” added Dmitry Kalinin, malware analyst at Kaspersky.

Analysing Android versions of the malware, Kaspersky experts found comments in the code written in Chinese. Additionally, the iOS version contained developer home directory names, “qiongwu” and “quiwengjing”, suggesting that the threat actors behind the campaign are fluent in Chinese. However, there is not enough evidence to attribute the campaign to a known cybercriminal group.

ML-powered attacks

Cybercriminals are increasingly paying attention to neural networks in their nefarious tools. In the case of SparkCat, the Android module decrypts and executes an OCR-plugin using the Google ML Kit library to recognise text in stored images. A similar method was used in its iOS malicious module.