E-Business
25% of Global Companies to Adopt Big Data Analytics by 2016
Criminals are rapidly evolving their hacking techniques, and are attacking quickly, making timely security and fraud analytics more critical than ever. Big data analytics give enterprises faster access to their own and relevant external information.
Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said enterprises can achieve significant savings in time and money when using big data analytics to stop crime and security infractions, by stopping losses and increasing productivity.
Ahead of the Gartner Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit 2014 , being held March 31 – April 2 in Las Vegas, Gartner predicts that by 2016, 25 percent of large global companies will have adopted big data analytics for at least one security or fraud detection use case, up from 8 percent today, and will achieve a positive return on investment within the first six months of implementation.
Ms. Litan said: Big data analytics gives enterprises faster access to their own data than ever before. Big data analytics enables enterprises to combine and correlate external and internal information to see a bigger picture of threats against their enterprises.
It is applicable in many security and fraud use cases such as detection of advanced threats, insider threats and account takeover.
Information needed to uncover security events loses value over time, and timely intelligent data analysis is critical as criminals and bad actors move much more quickly to commit their crimes.
For example, a year or two ago, hackers would look around, conduct extensive cyberespionage on their targets, and then go in for the theft — whether it was for money or information.
Now, hackers — aware of more-effective security and fraud prevention measures erected by their target victim enterprises — simply go directly to the theft without a drawn-out reconnaissance phase.
To address these issues in the past, enterprises relied on various siloed monitoring or detection systems that were optimized for various use cases, such as data loss, financial fraud, or privileged user monitoring.
Now, with big data analytics, enterprises can: Cut down on the noise and false alerts in existing monitoring systems by enriching them with contextual data and applying smarter analytics. This is especially important as the number of security events increase substantially year over year.
Correlate the resulting high-priority alerts across monitoring systems to detect patterns of abuse and fraud, and to get the big picture on the security state of the enterprise.
Pool their internal data and relevant external data into one logical place, and look for known patterns of security violations or fraud.
Profile accounts, users or other entities, and look for anomalous transactions against those profiles.
Remain agile, and stay ahead of malicious actors and activities, via faster tuning of rules and models tested against data streaming in near real time.
Big data analytics is ahead of most organizations’ abilities to successfully adopt them, and most vendors have barely begun to prove their software’s effectiveness, so it’s still early days for this market.
Enterprise are recommended to start small, but think big, and develop a road map that encompasses multiple use cases and applications across the organization. The return on investment (ROI) on big data analytics is typically too big to ignore.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.
Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.
“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.
Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.
“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin
The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.
Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.
“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin
Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.
To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.
Nigeria recently launched a new joint case team to step up its response to cybercrimes that affect people and businesses at home and abroad.
The ‘Joint Case Team on Cybercrime’ brings together Nigeria’s key justice and security agencies to work as one, making it easier to detect, investigate, and prosecute digital offences.
It is supported by the UK National Crime Agency, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, as part of a wider effort to promote international cooperation on cybercrime.
Speaking at the launch in Abuja, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN, minister of justice and attorney general of the federation described the initiative as “a bold and transformative stride in Nigeria’s justice system.”
He said that although Nigeria has a national legal framework to address cyber offences, laws alone are not enough.
Nigeria is among the countries most affected by cybercrime around the world, with increasing financial losses.
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