Telecom
Protecting Assets in a Remote-first (and potentially Hostile) World
By: Chester Wizniewski, Field CTO Applied Research at Sophos
I live in a city center and the lunch hour certainly isn’t like it once was. While some people have returned to working in an office, it seems that the majority have not. Looking back, the pandemic will have been a turning point for many things around the world, and the rhythms of office-centered worklife will be something that will never return to the old ways.
With this increased flexibility employees are not just working from home behind consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers; they are also spending part of the day at the park or coffee shop, or perhaps even having a “working holiday.” Those in charge of protecting enterprise assets have to assume these endpoints are always in hostile territory.
Even before the pandemic, organizations working toward improving their security maturity were often trying to “push left.” What is pushing left? At its most basic level it means moving things closer to the start. It originates from software development where the stages of the development process are conceptualized from left to right, left being the beginning. In applied security we also use the term “pushing left,” but rather than referring to the software development process we are referring to the attack chain, which moves from reconnaissance on the left through action (exfiltration or other attacker goal) on the right.
For many years, the most comprehensive security strategies have involved defense in depth. The idea is that not all technologies are suitable for detecting a given threat type, so it is best to deploy them in layers. These layers often directly correspond to how far “left” something is in the attack chain. If you can detect something at the network border through your firewall, email, or web filters, you have contained the threat before it has any negative impact on operations.
Ideally you want to detect and block an attacker as far left as possible, i.e., as early as possible. Pushing detections left also alerts security analysts that an intrusion may be underway, initiating more focused threat hunting to anticipate gaps in defenses your attacker may be attempting to exploit.
For employees at the office, you can centralize control of these defenses and provide optimum protection. The question is, are you able to provide the same protection for remote workers regardless of their location? Can you monitor and respond to threats being detected on those assets when they are out of the office? As many have observed, this did not work as well as we would have liked when we all went into lockdown, many of us without a plan.
While there are still many benefits to monitoring the network when you have control of it, including reduced endpoint overhead and the ability to keep threats at a distance from sensitive assets, we need to ensure we can take as much of this protection as possible with us when we are out and about.
We must ensure not only that protection is optimized, but also that we don’t lose our ability to monitor, detect, and respond to attacks targeting these remote assets. Most organizations have moved to utilizing EDR/XDR solutions (or plan to in the very near future) , which is a great start, but not all solutions are comprehensive.
In the remote-work era, insufficiently protected remote users can encounter plenty of issues – malicious URLs and downloads, and network attacks, to name only the most mundane – that in the Before Times would have been handled by machines guarding the corporate “fort.” The biggest missing components when users are “outside the fort” are HTTPS filtering and web content inspection of the sort that is typically implemented within next-generation firewalls. When you add these technologies to pre-execution protection, behavioral detection, machine learning models, client firewalls, DLP, application control, and XDR, you are starting to look at a comprehensive stack of defenses for attackers to overcome – even if the endpoints themselves are now free-range.
For initiatives like zero trust network access (ZTNA) to be effective, we must not only wrap the applications we interact with, but we must also wrap the endpoints that connect to them. Simple checks like whether the OS is up-to-date and whether it has security software installed may be a good start, but not all protection is created equal.
With most devices being connected to the internet whenever they’re in use, we can leverage the power of the cloud to help provide ubiquitous protection and monitoring. Modern security solutions must assume the endpoint device or phone is in a hostile environment at all times. The old idea of inside and outside is not only outdated, it’s downright dangerous.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has announced the formation of Airbel Ventures, a new humanitarian impact investing fund aimed at accelerating the introduction and scaling of breakthrough technologies in crisis-affected communities.
The fund will invest in companies whose ideas have the potential to change humanitarian response, including digital infrastructure for frontline health systems and climate-resilient agriculture.
The launch of Airbel Ventures follows a period of rapid innovation at the IRC, despite the humanitarian sector facing record funding cuts.
In the past year, the IRC’s Airbel Impact Lab has advanced more than twenty Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology initiatives—from anticipatory action tools powered by climate and vulnerability data, to frontline service delivery using safe, orchestrated AI systems, to breakthrough diagnostic tools for emerging diseases.
Airbel Ventures’ first impact investment is in Signalytic, a company delivering solar-powered computing devices that ensure reliable electricity and connectivity for remote health facilities.
Following the investment, the IRC will pilot Signalytic’s technology with its Nigeria Health team, demonstrating the viability of next-generation digital infrastructure in humanitarian settings.
“We know breakthrough solutions already exist—what’s missing is the path to scale in humanitarian contexts,” said Dr. Jeannie Annan, Senior Vice President for Research & Innovation at the IRC and head of the Airbel Impact Lab.
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecommunications operator, recorded a historic surge in network disruptions in 2025, suffering 9,218 fibre cuts as of December 31, alongside 211 base station sites affected by theft and vandalism, incidents that disrupted mobile and data services relied upon daily by millions of Nigerians.
The data was revealed by Dr Karl Toriola, chief executive officer/managing director, MTN Nigeria via a social media post titled ‘MTN Nigeria 2025 Wrapped’.
The scale of the damage highlights the growing vulnerability of Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure, which has come under increasing pressure from road construction activities, cable theft and deliberate acts of vandalism.
MTN said 5,478 fibre cuts occurred within just the first seven months of 2025, with 760 incidents recorded in July alone, underscoring the intensity of the challenge.
Some of the incidents had wide-ranging consequences, knocking out connectivity across multiple states simultaneously and affecting voice calls, data services, digital payments and enterprise operations.
The company described the situation as a national infrastructure problem, rather than an isolated corporate issue, given the economy’s deep dependence on mobile networks.
“These gaps were shaped by real operational challenges such as fibre cuts, theft, and vandalism. Their impact is felt directly by customers and reflected in what they tell us,” Toriola,
The disruptions were reflected in customer feedback volumes, as MTN handled an unprecedented number of complaints during the year. The operator said it resolved 1,624,263 customer complaints in 2025, spanning call centres, social media platforms, emails and physical service centres nationwide.
Despite the setbacks, MTN pointed to signs of operational resilience. The company retained its ranking as Nigeria’s best network by Ookla, returned to profitability after a challenging period, declared an interim dividend, and expanded its subscriber base to over 85 million users by September 2025.
The figures show that while Nigeria’s telecom operators continue to invest heavily in network expansion and customer service, infrastructure sabotage remains a major drag on service quality and operating costs.
MTN acknowledged that performance improvements remain a work in progress. “We are not where we want to be yet. We see you. We hear you. We exist because of you. And we will get better,” Toriola said.
As the company enters its 25th year of operations in Nigeria, Toriola said MTN is doubling down on customer-centricity, treating every piece of feedback as a guide for improvement, while also stepping up engagement with government agencies.
The CEO renewed calls for stronger regulatory and legal protections for telecommunications infrastructure, urging policymakers to classify fibre cables, base stations and other critical assets as national infrastructure and criminalise vandalism to deter repeat attacks.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted operating licences to six new Internet Service Providers (ISPs), effective January 1, 2026, raising the total number of authorised ISPs in the country to 231 from 225 recorded in December 2025.
NCC
The newly licensed firms are Intellvision Technologies Limited, Granet Technologies Limited, Fiber Sonic Limited, Dasol Solution Services Ltd, Boost ISP Limited, and Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited.
Five of these companies are headquartered in Lagos, while Granet Technologies Limited operates from Owerri in Imo State, highlighting the persistent concentration of broadband infrastructure in major commercial hubs like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.
This development intensifies competition in Nigeria’s broadband market, which faces pressure from dominant mobile network operators such as MTN and Airtel, alongside rapid expansion by satellite providers like Starlink.
Traditional ISPs continue to grapple with shrinking customer bases, aggressive data pricing from telcos, and satellite disruptions, even as NCC data from Q2 2025 showed Spectranet, Starlink, and FibreOne controlling about 65 per cent of the 313,713 active ISP subscribers.
The inclusion of Amazon Kuiper Nigeria Limited marks a significant entry of global satellite broadband competition, building on Nigeria’s recent approvals for other low Earth orbit providers to enhance connectivity in underserved areas.
Industry analysts view the licences as a strategic push to improve internet quality amid rising demand for digital services, though geographic clustering underscores ongoing infrastructure challenges outside urban centres.
NCC’s move aligns with broader efforts to foster a competitive telecoms sector critical to Nigeria’s digital economy ambitions.
First Asset Management Receives Upgraded Ratings from Agusto &Co and DataPro
Nigeria Treats Religious Violence as Attack on State – NSA Ribadu
Anambra Cuts Monday Pay to Kill Sit-at-Home
PalmPay User Shares Experience on Fintech Apps to Trust in Nigeria
Stakeholders Demand Stronger Governance and Infrastructure to Drive Tech Adoption @ Lagos AI Summit
Jumia CEO says Black Friday Signals Nigeria’s E-Commerce Maturity
19 Nigerian Banks Meet CBN Recapitalization Targets Ahead of March Deadline
Galaxy Backbone Celebrates the Federal Government’s Paperless Civil Service Milestone
DStv Offers Instant Package Upgrade for Customers from January to February
How Moniepoint’s Founders, Tosin Eniolorunda and Felix Ike are Redefining African Tech and Finance
E-Financial3 days agoZenith Bank Gets Regulatory Approval for Full Takeover of Paramount Bank
Telecom3 days agoNew Investment Fund Targets Acceleration of Emerging Technology in Nigeria
E-Business3 days agoFirm Detected a Fivefold Surge in QR Code Phishing Attacks in the Second Half of 2025
News3 days agoNITDA Commits to Digital Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities
General News2 days agoPalmPay User Shares Experience on Fintech Apps to Trust in Nigeria
News2 days agoStakeholders Demand Stronger Governance and Infrastructure to Drive Tech Adoption @ Lagos AI Summit
General News2 days agoNigerians Target Self-Improvement, Business Startups in 2026 Google Data
General News2 days agoHow Inside Jobs and Policy Shocks Trigger Nigeria’s Rising Loan Crisis