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HTTPS Leading Factor as 50% Web Traffic Now Encrypted

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A new report from the EFF released this week has confirmed recent report by Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, on the uptake of Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS), as half of the web’s traffic is now encrypted.

The rights organization noted the milestone was attributable to a number of efforts, including recent moves from major tech companies to implement HTTPS on their own properties.

Over the years, these efforts have included pushes from Facebook and Twitter, back in 2013 and 2012 respectively, as well as those from other sizable sites like Google, Wikipedia, Bing, Reddit and more, said TechCrunch in its article published on Thursday.

Fortnight ago, Mr. Oluniyi Ajao, manager, Web4Africa told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek in Lagos that demand for both HTTPS and .ng will increase geometrically, due to security concerns and a lot of businesses now consider local hosting of data as beneficial.

“Generally, it is what the market demands that will be offered. Sometimes, technological advancement does demand for massive changes. We offer HTTPs. The reasons for adopting HTTPs are increasing daily. Recently, Google said they would give websites that are on HTTPs a higher ranking. That inspired a lot of people to adopt HTTPs.

“Few weeks ago Chrome and Firefox started showing a warning website that doesn’t have HTTPs. So, I believe that because the internet is evolving the need to have HTTPs is beginning to increase and more people now understand what it stands for. I believe the adoption will increase in the country (Nigeria) as well,” Ajao said.

Nodding in agreement, Dr Chris Nwannenna, former president, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) called on the apps developer community and website hosting companies to lay much emphasis on HTTPs, adding that global IT trends entail that the security protocol is much required for safety.

He said that irrespective of pricing differences, it has always been a better option to be secured online while surfing any internet. He said that e-commerce platforms or online retailers must prioritise HTTPS to ensure visitors to the sites are protected.

Google played a significant role, having put pressure on websites to adopt HTTPS by beginning to use HTTPS as a signal in its search ranking algorithms. This year, it also ramped up the push towards HTTPS by marking websites that use HTTP connections for transmitting passwords and credit data as insecure.

HTTPS, which encrypts data in transit and helps prevent a site from being modified by a malicious user on the network, has gained increased attention in recent years as users have woken up to how much of their web usage is tracked, and even spied on by their own government. Large-scale hacks have also generally made people more security-minded as well.

A number of larger players on the web also switched on HTTPS in 2016, like WordPress.com which added support for HTTPS for all its custom domains, meaning the security and performance of the encryption technology became available every blog and website it hosted. Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Google made HTTPS connections the default in May 2016 for all the sites on its Blogspot domain, after having made HTTPS optional in fall 2015.

More recently, the U.S. Government has made strides toward ditching HTTP, with the news that all new executive branch domains would use HTTPS starting in the spring of this year. Another report on the federal government’s adoption of HTTPS from January found that of roughly 1,000 .gov domains, 61 percent enforce HTTPS.

And on the mobile web, Apple told iOS developers that HTTPS connections were required for apps by the end of last year, though it later extended that deadline.

Many major news organizations have also moved forward (including us!), while efforts like the Let’s Encrypt project have helped pushed others, including WordPress, to take advantage of the technology. The EFF also has its own tool, Certbot, that is being used to help webmasters – even those running smaller sites – make the switch.

The EFF noted that the average volume of encrypted web traffic varies depending on which browser maker is reporting their metrics. However, Mozilla recently said that more of its traffic is encrypted than unencrypted. Google’s Chrome, which is widely adopted, is more in line with the “50%” figure, the EFF found, as it said that over half of web pages are protected by HTTPS across different operating systems.

Not all sites support HTTPS or have it as the default, of course. The Chrome extensionHTTPS Everywhere can help with the latter, but more efforts still need to happen to get the other half the web encrypted as well.

 

 


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Kaspersky Transforms Threat Intelligence Reporting into an Interactive Content Hub

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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.


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Weebly Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

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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 Websites to Shut Down for Nigeria, 66 Other Countries from September

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.

 

 


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NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

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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.

NOTAP to Commercialise University Research, Expands Patent Drive

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.


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