E-Business
Prof. Obadare Underscores Critical Role of Cybersecurity in Nigeria’s AI-Driven Digital Growth

Prof. Obadare Peter Adewale, founder and CVO of Digital Encode, represented by Oluwakayode O. Olatunji, CISO and Group Head of InfoSec & GRC Advisory, emphasized the need for Nigeria to understand the threat landscape and the critical role of cybersecurity in protecting against these threats.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek reports that the emphasis made by Prof. Obadare is essential for driving sub-sectoral digital growth through Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In his presentation at the one-day ICT Growth Conference organized by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) at the Citi Height Hotel, Lagos, he noted that many African countries lag behind in cybersecurity.
Read Also: Oluyemi Obadare Accepted into Forbes Business Council
Even in Nigeria, the financial sector has been at the forefront of leveraging AI and cybersecurity, contributing about 25%-30% of AI involvement based on local statistics.
He highlighted the potential of AI across various sectors, including finance, health, energy, transportation, defense, medical, and agriculture.
He underscored AI’s ability to predict productivity and its diverse benefits but quickly cautioned against the dangers of AI misuse, stemming from issues such as bias and fairness, inadequate transparency, security vulnerabilities, data privacy concerns, and ethical and moral dilemmas.
The cybersecurity expert discussed the use of AI in threat landscape profiling, crime detection and prevention, and reporting capabilities.
He stressed the importance of responsible AI usage and the need for continued investment in AI and cybersecurity.
Identifying AI Governance, Architecture, Implementation, Operations, and Monitoring (GAIOM) as key elements for effective cybersecurity strategies in responsible AI development, he emphasized the importance of AI architecture, including business and data architecture, technology-infrastructure architecture and the necessity of a security architecture which includes cybersecurity and data privacy protection respectively.
Data protection and privacy are crucial components of AI implementation. The process of implementing AI, from setting goals to security monitoring, is vital.
The role of education and investment in education for driving AI adoption and economic growth cannot be overemphasized.
To fully realize the impact of AI on national development, he advocated for explicitly defined governance objectives, an AI ethical framework, an interdisciplinary approach, robust local content data management, all-inclusive regulatory compliance, tailored best practice risk assessment and mitigation, transparency and explainability, sustained human capacity development, and robust processes to address AI implementation challenges.
He also argued that monitoring AI usage and ensuring its alignment with set goals during the implementation process is critical.
In addition, he called for increased public sector and government investment in education to drive AI adoption and economic growth, noting that the role of education in providing the necessary skills and knowledge for AI implementation cannot be ignored.
He introduced the concept of “knowledge banking,” where knowledge can be monetized to address various economic sectors.
He pointed out that in countries using AI to drive their economies, education is a fundamental prerequisite, and positively disruptive education leads to the needed transformation by developing tailored skill sets.
“When we examine this, it becomes evident that many challenges we face in this part of the world will become easier to address.
“As a country, we have the potential to be a leading light in the knowledge economy because Nigeria is blessed with brilliant men and women,” he said.
Prof. Obadare, who was recently appointed a Professor of Practice by MIVA Open University, Abuja, also proposed a disruption of the educational sector to improve data quality.
He emphasized that relying too heavily on outsourced data libraries can lead to AI biases and stressed the importance of maintaining excellent data quality as a local content treasure.
“To address this, we need to disrupt the educational sector, particularly from primary to tertiary institutions, to focus more on institutional or research-based education.
“For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the global data was sourced from Johns Hopkins Hospital research center, indicating the importance of local research centers.
“We should encourage partnerships with the private and public sectors to create local content hubs, which would attract global tech companies like Meta and Google to invest in our ingenuity.
“Our tertiary education sector should be research-oriented and local content-focused to improve data quality and upskill the workforce, adapting to the challenge of training AI rather than traditional skills,” he concluded.
E-Business
Kaspersky Transforms Threat Intelligence Reporting into an Interactive Content Hub

Easy interaction with exclusive Kaspersky reports, geo-filtering and actionable intelligence in a single click: expert insights on Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), Crimeware and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) threats are now available directly in Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal — with charts and visuals rendered inline.

In an era of increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks, threat intelligence inevitably evolves into a business enabler that equips security teams with strategic advantage in their mission to back their company’s stability and growth.
Kaspersky, a recognised leader in threat intelligence, facilitates informed decision-making and proactive risk mitigation by introducing simplified access to actionable and relevant threat insights.
Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Reporting is a subscription-based service delivering over 200 in-depth analysis reports annually. These insights are compiled by Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team, Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team and Threat Research experts through the continuous tracking of more than 900 threat actors and campaigns.
Following the update, all reports previously representing a library of static PDF files (that is more than 2000 exclusive Kaspersky reports published to date) are now structured and can be examined directly in the Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal. For offline use, the standard PDF download format remains available as well.
The update also introduces deeper integration within each report, featuring direct links to indicators of compromise (IoCs), detection rules (including YARA), and MITRE ATT&CK® techniques. Users can now perform a single-click drill-down into specific threat actors, malware families and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) across diverse geographies and industries.
Smart geo-filtering streamlines investigations by prioritising content explicitly mentioning a selected country, followed by broader regional intelligence, giving analysts a complete geographic view in a single query.
Enhanced Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Reporting supports the following use cases:
- Customised content discovery: apply geo, industry and software filters to instantly retrieve a list of relevant reports.
- Exclusive intelligence: access the most recent incident investigation reports, including those without public disclosure, to understand the nature of an attack and identify the actions required for mitigation.
- Actionable intelligence extraction: extract and apply threat data from the reports and apply it across specific infrastructure to detect traces of compromise.
- In-depth Threat Lookup and contextual analysis: investigate suspicious indicators identified within the network and quickly determine if a specific IoC is linked to a related threat report.
“Empowering cybersecurity teams in their mission-critical daily work to ensure business resilience in a complex threat landscape. This is the main driver behind our ongoing visual and functional improvement initiative.
While updating Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal, we focused on refining the customer experience by optimising processes of active investigation, proactive incident monitoring and detailed mitigation techniques,” comments Alexander Mazikin, Head of Threat Intelligence Product Line at Kaspersky.
E-Business
Weebly Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

Weebly, US-based free, beginner-friendly, drag-and-drop website builder and eCommerce service, will no longer be available for customers in 67 countries, including Nigeria, after September 2026, according to an email seen by Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

Weebly said it is “winding down” services in different nations “due to changes in regulation and to simplify our global operations”.
The firm released a timeline of gradual changes, to help existing users access their data before the site shuts down.
Starting June 29, customers of 67 countries were no longer able to publish any new pages.
September 27, 2026: Weebly websites will be unpublished.
Before this date, users should download site content and data. Follow these steps:
Go to Account Settings, click on My Data, and select Download My Data.
This will help you migrate your content to another website provider, or retain it.
Concerned about privacy? Ask Weebly to delete your data, through the Erase Data and Forget Me option under the My Data tab on your account page.
December 26, 2026: Last date of accessing Weebly account.
Until this date, you will have access to the account, although sites will be unpublished.
This period helps users move their site, domains, and data to another service.
Domain names can be moved to another registrar only after 60 days from the registration date.
According to the Weebly website, users must make sure that they do not make changes to your registrant contact information (email, phone number, first/last name), as this will lead to a 60-day registrar lock and prevent you from transferring your domain name.
Note that domain name transfers work differently for country-specific domains; users must contact Weebly’s support team for assistance.
How to unlock, transfer domain name
From your Weebly Dashboard, go to websites, and click on Domains, then select Manage Domain.
Disable registrar lock, get EPP authorisation code, and copy the full code.
Disabling registrar lock will also disable privacy protection. It is important to set privacy protection once again with the new registrar.
Follow the instructions for the newly chosen registrar as the rest of the transfer process will be managed by them
Why is Weebly winding down?
While the firm attributed it to “a change in regulation,” online users have argued that Square, which acquired Weebly in 2018, is pushing its platform ‘Square Online’.
Square is originally a US-based payment processor, and the firm says it has since evolved into the “largest business tech platform”.
It calls Square Online a “free online store” but clarifies that those who do not sell online can also use it to build their websites.
In an earlier support update for the Weebly Website Builder, Square Online was consistently referred to as a better alternative, although at the time, it was said that Square “has no plans to discontinue the Weebly website builder”.
Which countries will Weebly no longer be available in? Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbadoa, Belarus, Benin and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Others are: Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Also affected are: Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, French Polynesia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Iceland, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Mauritius, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal and New Caledonia.
The rest are: Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Korea, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
E-Business
NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

National Office for Technology Acquisition and Transfer (NOTAP), has commenced the process of patenting and commercialisation of research works by universities and other research institutions in the country.

Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi, director general of NOTAP
Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi, director general of NOTAP, stated this in Abuja, during an interaction with journalists on her achievements since assuming office.
Speaking on the theme, “Strengthening Indigenous Capacity: NOTAP’s Drive for Technology Transfer, Local Content Development, and Innovative activities,” Amadiobi said the agency had involved both the academia and industry so that researchers can work on topics brought forward for commercialisation purpose.
“My minister is very intentional about this– very intentional about commercialisation of research results, which we have already submitted to him. They are meaningful researches, which we need to commercialise.
“We have established 69 intellectual property technology transfer offices in 69 universities that we are still counting. We have informed the vice chancellors of Nigerian universities to set up such offices and we will come and educate them on intellectual property and technology transfers.
“As we are doing this, we are also taking record of all the researchers of these universities and research centres and documenting them in a compendium.
“So, we have compendiums from the universities to us and we put them in a database. If you will recall, recently, the ministry, our supervising ministry, which is the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, launched a programme titled Energise Commercialisation. This entirely was for commercialisation of all R&Ds,” she said.
On research Institutions carrying out research on areas of industry needs, she said, “NOTAP is bridging the gap between research and development with industry needs, “it is on our programme called the NITDF, NOTAP Industry Technology Transfer Fellowship. By this programme, we engage the universities and the industries, in what we call the triple helix. We liaise with the universities and the industries to sponsor, the industries will sponsor a Ph.D candidate in a Nigerian university to conduct relevant researches.
“They will provide the topics that they want researches for and such students will research on that with the assistance of the industries, because they wear the shoes, so they know where it pinches them. But usually, there are Ph.D candidates already established. This year alone, we certified about 15 of them to enter into this programme and they have gone into the various universities.
“And we are still looking for people to update some of the projects; the research topics we already have. But we are not getting enough persons to do the researches. So, we are going to do further advertisement to see if other candidates will come up.
General News1 day agoNIS Deploys Advanced Surveillance Masts, other Critical Infrastructure to Boost Border Security
E-Financial1 day agoTokenization, Blockchain Technology will Transform Financial Institutions – IMF
Broadcasting1 day agoObi, NDC Presidential Candidate Faces N50Bn Defamation Claim over Alleged Podcast Remark
E-Business1 day agoWeebly Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September
Telecom1 day agoNo Plans for Fresh Tariff Hike – MTN
E-Financial1 day agoFG Denies N8 Trillion ‘Shadow Budget’, Says IMF Quoted out of Context
General News1 day agoPufferPay CEO to Keynote Business Journal Fintech & Financial Inclusion Roundtable 2026
Telecom1 day agoAirtel Africa Foundation Equips 200 Young Women with Digital Skills to Drive Nigeria’s Tech Economy



















