E-Business

The Importance of Security Operations Centers to Contemporary Organizations

Published

5 years ago

October 11, 2021

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As organizations grow more dependent on IT solutions, they have also become potential subjects of cyber threats. These threats vary in terms of the risk they portend for their targets; the more lethal ones could inflict costly damage on their victims.

Businesses, public sector concerns, and other institutions have responded by taking proactive measures to prevent these threats from being actualized. In some cases, the creation of a Security Operations Center sits at the core of their strategy.

What Is a Security Operations Center?

A Security Operations Center (SOC) is a unit that’s built to tackle the security issues of an organization. It consists of the personnel, technologies, and processes that are required to maintain the organization’s security status.

The personnel at a Security Operations Center include members of the IT team who are adequately skilled at identifying and dealing with threats. The SOC’s processes involve monitoring, detecting, analyzing, and responding to threats.

Technologies used at a SOC are built to scour networks, servers, endpoints, websites, and databases for signs that such systems have been compromised. They also include tools that help with reporting such incidents.

In other words, the SOC serves as a point at which events logged throughout an institution are monitored. This setup works through the data and determines whether there are threats, and how to defend the organization against such threats where they exist.

The Functions of a Security Operations Center

As has already been hinted, a Security Operations Center needs to have visibility into the various aspects of the assets it is supposed to protect. It should also track the networked interaction between these assets, including software, endpoints, and servers.

Also part of the SOC’s mandate is preparation for possible attacks. To do this successfully, teams within the SOC will have to keep tabs on the latest developments in cybersecurity, such as emerging threats and best practices for defending systems against them. Vulnerabilities should be patched, firewalls updated, and applications secured.

Monitoring systems with tools such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is standard practice for SOCs. The EDR continuously collects and analyzes activity data from endpoints throughout the organization, and provides automated responses to perceived irregularities within these data that may signal an imminent attack. SIEM similarly gives SOC personnel insights into activities in their IT environment.

In addition to these, the Security Operations Center also ranks security alerts, discerns genuine risks from false positives, responds to threats (by shutting down or isolating compromised endpoints, etc.), and carries out recovery and remediation following an attack.

The Structure of a Security Operations Center

Given its various duties, the SOC is ideally staffed with multiple IT security professionals, each playing a specific role within the setup.

A manager, who leads the team, should coordinate and oversee the processes ongoing within the SOC. They should also be able to fill any of the roles there. An analyst collects and analyzes past data or data generated after a breach has occurred.

Another role, the investigator, involves assessing a breach and answering questions about how and why the event occurred. They may also take on the role of the incidence responder, who takes action to minimize the impact of breaches.

One person could play multiple roles; it all depends on how big the organization affected is.

The structure of the SOC should be documented, with each role defined, and questions around responsibility and collaboration answered. Security processes that ought to be defined include monitoring, alerting, escalation, investigation, incident logging, compliance monitoring, and reporting.

Benefits of a Security Operations Center

An immediately perceivable benefit of the SOC is that knowledge is centralized. Personnel at the SOC gain a bird’s eye view of their organization’s networks and are better able to spot vulnerabilities. This setup lets them share vital information so that their work is more coordinated and ultimately effective.

This approach to security may reduce running costs as well. With the cybersecurity team and infrastructure in one location, resources are concentrated in one place at a given time. Because they are in a single location, organizations don’t have to spend more to maintain various offices across different locations.

Centralization may also help improve collaboration between members of the IT security team. They can leverage each other’s expertise and experience, and develop solutions that help their parent company in many ways.

With greater team collaboration comes improved response times. The use of advanced tools for threat detection and monitoring strengthens this benefit even more. With proactive network and endpoint monitoring tools, it’s even possible to protect against cyber threats before they materialize.

Finally, there’s the round-the-clock protection that SOC affords. Because attacks aren’t limited to working hours during weekdays, SOCs are built to monitor for potential vulnerabilities every hour of every day.

An Option Worth Considering: Managed Security Operations Center

Not all businesses are able to set up a functional SOC. The expertise, experience, tools, and space required to run it may constitute a drain on resources, besides forcing the business to take on additional tasks to its core operations.

Managed SOCs are a solution to this problem. Cybersecurity firms often offer this as a service to their client organizations. This means that businesses don’t need to have a large department dealing with security issues. Signing up with a reputable cybersecurity firm will allow them to have a SOC with that firm, and focus on their core operations.

Layer3 can help you manage your company’s IT security. We do this by leveraging the expertise and experience of our cybersecurity experts, and our knowledge of the present and emerging risks that enterprises face in today’s world. These, combined with our advanced threat detection and security intelligence tools and systems, will take care of the things you would typically assign to an in-house SOC. This guarantees cost savings for your organization and lets you devote more time and resources to your principal operations.

If you would like to learn more about our IT security service offerings, you can get in touch with us here.

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E-Business

NPC Opens 131 Births, Deaths Registration Centres in Anambra

Published

8 hours ago

July 27, 2026

Ebere Melum-Nwogbo

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National Population Commission (NPC) has announced commencement of full digital registration of births and deaths through the VitalReg platform, which became operational nationwide on July 1, 2026.

NPC Opens 131 Births, Deaths Registration Centres in Anambra

Chidi Ezeoke, federal commissioner representing Anambra, disclosed this in Awka during a press conference to announce commencement of full digital birth and death registration under the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (E-CRVS) system and the marking of World Population Day commemorated every July 11.

He revealed that a total of 131 registration centres had been opened in the 21 local government headquarters and several communities in the state, adding that more centres would be opened later.

Ezeoke described the initiative as a major milestone in Nigeria’s Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system, to ensure every birth and death in the country was captured through a digitally enabled registration platform.

“It builds on the launch of the E-CRVS system and the inauguration of the National Coordination Committee on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics by President Bola Tinubu on Nov. 8, 2023.

“A total of 4,011 functional registration centres has been established across the 774 LGAs of the federation and the commission iswas working to expand the number to about 8,000.

“In Anambra, 131 registration centres have been opened in the 21 local government headquarters and several communities. More centres had been proposed for the state,” he said.

According to the Commissioner, the VitalReg platform would provide faster registration services, 24-hour online access, digital certificate issuance where applicable, reduced paperwork and waiting time, improved data validation and a more secure national CRVS database.

While noting that the platform would serve as a foundational database to support other national data systems and strengthen interoperability across Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem, Ezeoke urged Nigerians and other stakeholders to support the initiative by ensuring prompt registration of all births and deaths.

Speaking on the 2026 World Population Day themed, “Realising the Hopes and Aspirations of Young People – Today and for the Future”, the Commissioner called for greater investment in education, healthcare, skills development, decent employment opportunities and youth participation in governance for sustainable national development.

Earlier, Mr Obiakonwa Okagwu, state director, NPC, said the occasion served as a reminder of great opportunities provided to harness young people’s capabilities, which he said would shape the future of the country when adequately harnessed.

He called on residents to take registration of births and deaths as national responsibility, just as he urged the media to take the message on civil registration to all parts of the State.

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E-Business

Report Says Cybercriminals Deploy Malware to Hijack Crypto Wallets, Monitor Browsers Telegram

Published

9 hours ago

July 27, 2026

Ebere Melum-Nwogbo

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Cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky have uncovered a sophisticated malware framework, dubbed OkoBot, that is targeting cryptocurrency users by stealing wallet recovery phrases, browser credentials and other sensitive information through a multi-stage attack campaign spanning more than 25 countries.

The researchers said the malware, active since April 2025, employs more than 20 malicious payloads and has evolved into an advanced cybercrime platform focused on compromising digital asset holders. According to Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), the campaign remains active and has already affected hundreds of users worldwide.

Kaspersky disclosed that one of the framework’s most dangerous components, known as SeedHunter, injects malicious code into legitimate cryptocurrency wallet applications, including Ledger Wallet, Ledger Live and Trezor Suite, before displaying fake recovery phrase prompts designed to trick victims into surrendering their seed phrases.

The security firm explained that once attackers obtain a victim’s recovery phrase, they gain complete control over the cryptocurrency wallet, enabling them to transfer digital assets with virtually no chance of recovery.

Commenting on the discovery, Dmitry Galov, security researcher at Kaspersky’s GReAT, said.

“This campaign has been running for more than a year and remains active. OkoBot is not just a single piece of malware but an extensible framework built primarily to compromise cryptocurrency users.”

Galov added that the malware is continuously maintained and enhanced, underscoring the attackers’ long-term focus on financial theft.

According to Kaspersky, victims are typically infected through ClickFix phishing attacks or malicious GitHub repositories masquerading as legitimate software downloads. In one instance, a fake Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio repository secretly installed a trojanized version of the Audacity audio editor embedded with malicious code.

Following the initial compromise, the attackers deploy a PowerShell downloader called TookPS,which establishes an encrypted SSH connection to attacker-controlled infrastructure.

The malware then harvests browser cookies, wallet files, stored credentials and system information before downloading additional malicious modules.

Among the additional payloads is OkoSpyware which monitors more than 100 applications, which includes cryptocurrency wallets and password managers—records user activity and captures keystrokes and video of application windows. Another module silently installs malicious browser extensions capable of stealing financial information and authentication tokens.

However, Kaspersky’s telemetry indicates that the largest concentrations of victims have been recorded in Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Mexico and Türkiye, although the malware campaign has spread to users across more than 25 countries.

The cybersecurity firm advised cryptocurrency users never to enter wallet recovery phrases into prompts displayed by desktop applications or websites unless they have independently verified their authenticity.

Furthermore,It also urged users to download wallet software exclusively from official sources, enable multi-layered endpoint protection, and remain cautious of software offered through unofficial repositories or phishing websites.

Kaspersky noted that while hardware wallets themselves remain secure, attackers are increasingly exploiting the software that accompanies them, making user awareness a critical line of defence against evolving cryptocurrency-focused cyber threats.

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E-Business

HURIWA, CLO Protests Bill Asking Social Media Firms’ to Open Shops Nigeria

Published

2 days ago

July 25, 2026

Ebere Melum-Nwogbo

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Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has opposed a bill seeking to compel major global social media companies to establish physical offices in Nigeria.

HURIWA, CLO Protests Bill Asking Social Media Firms’ to Open Shops Nigeria

The rights advocacy group urged the National Assembly to discard the proposed legislation, warning that it could become a tool for censorship and undermine citizens’ constitutional right to freedom of expression, despite being presented as a measure to strengthen Nigeria’s digital economy and improve corporate accountability.

The position was contained in a presentation submitted yesterday by Emmanuel Onwubiko, national coordinator, HURIWA, to the chairman of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cyber Security.

The bill, sponsored by Senator Ned Munir Nwoko, has already passed second reading in the Senate and is before the committee for further legislative consideration.

HURIWA said it carefully reviewed the proposed legislation and concluded that compelling global technology companies to establish offices in Nigeria was unnecessary and potentially counterproductive.

The organisation argued that while the firms generate substantial revenue from Nigeria’s vast digital market, they already engage Nigerians through existing structures, including paying eligible content creators, working with local technology professionals and participating in legal proceedings whenever required.

According to the group, appointing local representatives where necessary would adequately address concerns about engagement with regulators and users without forcing the companies to maintain physical offices.

It also dismissed claims that mandatory country offices would significantly improve consumer complaint resolution, technology transfer or employment generation.

HURIWA maintained that the platforms already have effective feedback mechanisms for resolving users’ complaints and routinely appear before Nigerian courts through their representatives whenever litigation arises.

The group, however, said its greatest concern was the potential for the proposed law to be used as an instrument for restricting freedom of expression.

It argued that establishing local offices could expose global social media companies to pressure from government authorities to remove online content considered critical of those in power.

According to the rights group, the presence of social media companies in Nigeria could become an avenue for authorities to pressure them into abandoning internationally recognised digital rights standards in favour of politically motivated content moderation.

It recalled previous attempts to regulate social media in Nigeria that generated widespread concerns over possible restrictions on free speech, stressing that any legislation affecting the digital space must contain clear safeguards against abuse.

The organisation warned that the proposed law should never become “a backdoor mechanism for government surveillance, arbitrary content removal or political censorship.

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