E-Business

Curbing N127bn Cybersecurity Annual Losses via Tardigrade’s ERA Roadmap

Published

8 years ago

February 12, 2018

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With cyber attacks on the rise, organisations across the globe are contending with loss of reputation, loss of customers, potential financial liabilities, regulatory notification requirements and sometimes, litigation.

To address this menace, however, Tardigrade, a Nollysoft’s Enterprise Risk Assessment (ERA) solution, has been identified by experts as a veritable roadmap that would provide a better understanding of the cybersecurity space and a good grasp of the internal control mechanisms to organisations towards cyber threats.

The greatest war that countries in the 21st Century currently face and which they must prepare to win headlong to actively participate in the global economy largely driven by the Internet is cyber warfare.

As such, the need for organisations to deploy a security solution that helps to identify factors contributing to and determining the organisation’s overall cyber risk; assess the organisation’s cybersecurity preparedness; evaluate whether the organisation’s cybersecurity preparedness is aligned with its risks; determine risk management practices and controls that are needed or need enhancement and actions to be taken to achieve the desired state and offers informed risk management strategies to organisations cannot be under-estimated.

Indeed, local and regional authorities, professional IT associations and various reports home and abroad have raised the sentiments around the danger posed by cyber threats and the need for each organisation to get its IT infrastructure weaponised through effective internal controls and security solutions.

Rising wave of concerns

For instance, the telecoms industry regulator in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission, has noted that cybersecurity has become an essential component of the human activity. This was the position of the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, at a cybersecurity forum in Lagos,where he noted that cyber attacks’ high level of complexity requires action at different levels (both virtual and physical) and by different actors, including governments, private sector, civil society, intergovernmental organisations, among others.

According to him, the current scale and growth of ICT applications transcend all spheres of social and economic boundaries worldwide. “Whether it is broadcasting (digital TV) or social networking, e-Commerce (mobile banking and financial services), e-Governance (government services management, e-education, e-health, e-taxation, e-commerce), governments, institutions and the society, in general, are increasingly embracing these technologies and at the same time becoming exposed to vulnerabilities of cyber-attacks,” he said.

He, therefore, strongly advocated that technical measures such as theNollysoft’s Enterprise Risk Assessment (ERA) solution and appropriate legal instruments must be put in place to enhance the resilience of cybersecurity infrastructure and safeguard cyber technologies users.

In the same vein, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Mr. Shola Taylor, has also raised serious concerns about the dangers of cyber attacks and the need for a synergy by stakeholders to mitigate and, if possible, prevent their potential risks on organisations IT infrastructure.

According to Taylor, “Cyberspace contributes significantly to achieving countries’ national development goals, and so international organisations, national security services, operators, intelligence and data protection agencies, as well as citizens all, have a role to play in making cyberspace safer and more resilient,” he said, while sharing the CTO’s experience in developing national cybersecurity strategies for Commonwealth member countries as well as other countries, including Senegal last year.

Potential risks, exposures and losses

In Nigeria, over N127 billion is lost annually by mostly business organisations and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government, translating to 0.08 per cent loss in the `country’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the country’s Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu.

Also,62 per cent of firms are being attacked weekly, according to a 2017 International Data Corporation (IDC) InfoBriefsponsored by Splunk. In the report, it was noted that with malware becoming more advanced with encrypted ransomware, the security breach impacts on organisations may include loss of reputation, loss of customers, potential financial liabilities, regulatory notification requirements and sometimes litigation instigated by victim customers.

President, Cyber Secure Conference organised by the Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN), Mr. Remi Afon quoted another statistics, which puts the cost of cyber-crime globally at $700 billion per year.He said the loss is projected to rise to about $2 trillion by 2019, due to the rapid digitisation of consumer lives and company records. Breaches like these have steadily been on the rise as according to reports, the number of incidents has increased by more 38 per cent annually since 2015.

According to U.S. State of Cybercrime survey, Ponemon Institute, and Juniper research, cybersecurity events and costs are increasing, data breaches are expected to reach $2.1 trillion globally by 2019.

Thus, Afon argues that there is a need for Nigeria to implement the National Cyber Security Strategy and Policy and ensure effective implementation of the Cybercrime Act 2015 as well making organisations embrace the newest solution. One of such security solutions ready to tackle cyber attacks on organisations in the country is Tardigrade, a Nollysoft’s Enterprise Risk Assessment (ERA) solution.

This is instructive as industry experts have said organisations in Nigeria are in dire need of cyber experts that could help secure the cyberspace and one of the ways to boost protection is to embrace and deploy innovative solutions offered by security company/experts.

Tardigrade – an Enterprise Risk Assessment (ERA) solution to the rescue

In the industry today, Tardigrade, an Enterprise Risk Assessment (ERA) solution, introduced into Nigeria by Nollysoft, towers among other Risk assessment solutions present robust impact assessments and strategic security solutions to organisation by helping them to have in place processes that ensure they understand their gaps and state of preparedness to respond to cyber breaches. Senior Management and Board of organisations are often faced with the following key concerns among several: How protected is their organisation from internal and external threats, is the organisation a direct target for attacks?, who is accountable for assessing and managing the risks posed by changes to the business strategy or technology?

Others are how effective is their system of internal control and being applied? how do they compare to competitions and how do we compare with our peers in the industry?

Tardigrade solution effectively addresses these concerns.

According to industry experts, organisations need a good handle on the cyber threats and risks their organisation may face. They also need to have a grasp of whether their system of internal control is effective, or basically, need to implement specific security controls from standards such NIST 800-53 or ISO 27001.

The Tardigrade assessment solution helps organisations to understand their cybersecurity and internal control risks so that they can implement appropriate mitigation controls to achieve a desired state of preparedness.

“Tardigrade Cybersecurity Assessment helps organisations identify their risks and determine their cybersecurity preparedness. The assessment solution provides businesses with repeatable and measurable processes to inform senior management of their organisations’ cybersecurity preparedness over time,” said Sola Koleowo, Chief Executive Officer of Nollysoft Limited on behalf of the company.

The ERA solution, Koleowo, said is based on best practice frameworks set by Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC), Information Technology Examination Handbook (ITEH), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Cybersecurity Framework (CF)and International Standard Organisation (ISO 27001) and regulatory guidance.

According to him, the Tardigrade Internal Control solution enables organizations to understand deficiencies in their system of internal control to allow the creation of effective mitigating control to help achieve business objectives. It is based on industry standard and best practices framework – Committee of Sponsoring Organisations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

On the security requirement traceability matrix, Koleowo said, “Tardigrade Security Requirement Traceability Matrix solution allows organisations to effectively select security controls from standards and regulations for implementation either as a part of a Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) or regulatory mandate,” stressing that the solution currently supports 2 industry standards: NIST 800-53 R4 and ISO 27001-2013, and two regulations: Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Monetary Association of Singapore (MAS).

The total cost of ownership (TCO) of Tardigrade solution is low. No CAPEX needed to acquire the solution. It is a Cloud-based solution and being offered as a service.

Last Line

Leveraging innovative enterprise risk assessment solution such as Tardigrade by organisations from private to public sectors of the economy will not only guarantee effective protection for user organisations but also help curb losses to the national economy. This is just as industry analysts say the arrival of Tardigrade will raise the bar of organisations’ protection against potential cyber threats and associated losses.

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E-Business

What the Retail and E-commerce Sector Should Expect in 2026 in Era of AI-driven Shopping and Privacy

Published

1 hour ago

January 21, 2026

Chike Onwuegbuchi

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In 2025, the retail and e-commerce sector continued to face intense pressure from cybercriminals. According to Kaspersky data, 14,41%* of users in the global retail sector encountered web-based threats, while 22,20% were affected by on-device attacks.

Ransomware remains a serious concern for the industry. Last year, 8,25% of retail and e-commerce companies experienced ransomware incidents, and the number of unique B2B users in the sector affected by ransomware detections rose by 152% compared to 2023, signalling a sharp escalation in targeted attacks.

Phishing also continues to be a major threat vector. Kaspersky identified 6.7 million phishing attacks targeting users of online stores, delivery services, and payment systems in 2025. More than half of these attacks (50,58%) were aimed specifically at online stores, underscoring cybercriminals’ focus on e-commerce platforms as high-value targets for fraud and data theft.

A look at 2025 cybersecurity for retail & e-commerce: Trends and what happened

A stealer with a taste for pizza delivery. Shopping and food ordering via mobile apps are routine user behaviours. However, 2025 demonstrated that even downloading a seemingly legitimate app from an official app store does not guarantee safety, nor does it ensure that user data and financial credentials will not be compromised.

Ransomware detections in the B2B sector increased due to a single dominant actor. The number of unique users in the Retail & E-commerce sector who encountered ransomware detections increased by 152% in 2025 compared to 2023 (Nov 2024 – Oct 2025 vs. Nov 2022 – Oct 2023).

The most significant growth occurred during the 2024-2025 period and is largely attributable to the rapid spread of the Trojan-Ransom.Win32. Dcryptor family, which became highly prevalent across the retail and e-commerce sector in some of the analysed markets. This malware is a trojanised ransomware variant that leverages the legitimate DiskCryptor utility to encrypt disk partitions on victim systems.

Phishing activity in the online retail segment stood out. Despite being a long-established attack technique, phishing remains highly prevalent in the context of online purchasing.

From November 2024 through to October 2025, Kaspersky products blocked 6,651,955 attempts to access phishing links targeting users of online stores, payment systems, and delivery services. Of these attempts, 50.58% targeted online shoppers, 27.3% impersonated payment systems, and 22.12% targeted users of delivery companies.

Sales seasons continue to do the work for attackers. Seasonal peaks in online shopping consistently provide attackers with predictable opportunities to scale user-focused attacks.

Periods of heightened promotional activity lower user vigilance and allow familiar phishing and spam scenarios to blend into legitimate marketing traffic, increasing their overall effectiveness.

Predictions: What retail & e-commerce cybersecurity might face in 2026

Chatbots are likely to become a common product discovery tool across online marketplaces. Unlike traditional search, conversational interfaces encourage users to share more detailed, natural-language requests, revealing preferences, constraints, and contextual information.

This shift expands the privacy attack surface, as platforms accumulate richer user profiles through chat interactions. As a result, chatbot logs may become as sensitive as transactional data, increasing the risks of over-collection, misuse, or exposure of personal information.

“Search itself is changing, including how people look for products online. In 2025, there was a gradual shift from simple keyword queries to more conversational and visual ways of finding what to buy. As these models rely on broader user input, careful handling of the data involved will remain an important consideration for maintaining user trust,” comments Anna Larkina, Web data and privacy analysis expert at Kaspersky.

Changes in taxes and trade rules might be exploited in online fraud. Modifications in taxes, import duties, and cross-border trade rules are likely to be used as lures in phishing campaigns and fraudulent online stores, promoting unrealistically cheap offers or claims of avoided fees.

As pricing and fee rules continue to evolve across markets, it may lower vigilance, increasing the effectiveness of such schemes, particularly against small and mid-sized retailers.

AI-powered shopping assistants are expected to increasingly operate outside retail platforms, embedding themselves into browsers, mobile apps, and third-party services. While designed to simplify navigation and price discovery, these tools shift data collection beyond the retailer’s perimeter, creating new and less visible privacy risks.

To function effectively, external AI shopping agents require continuous access to user behaviour, including browsing activity, search intent, location context and product interactions across multiple sites.

This enables the aggregation of detailed behavioural profiles outside the direct control of both users and retail platforms, increasing the risks of over-collection, opaque data usage, and unintended exposure.

Image-based product search might become a new challenge in privacy risks. Previously, the main privacy concern around user images in e-commerce was limited to photos voluntarily shared in product reviews.

However, image-based product search is expected to make photo uploads a routine part of the shopping experience across major retail platforms. While this feature improves product discovery, it also increases the risk of unintended exposure of personal data.

User-submitted images may contain faces, home environments, or sensitive details, such as names, phone numbers, or addresses visible on shipping labels or packaging, making secure processing, data minimisation, and limited retention critical requirements for retailers.

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E-Business

Elon Musk Seeks $134Bn from OpenAI, Microsoft for ‘Wrongful Gains’

Published

2 days ago

January 19, 2026

Ebere Melum-Nwogbo

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Elon Musk, billionaire Tesla owner, has asked a United States (US) federal court to award him up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, stating that the companies earned “wrongful gains” from his early support of the artificial intelligence startup.

Elon Musk,

This is according to a court filing, reported by Reuters.

In filings ahead of a trial expected to start in April in Oakland, California, Musk stated that OpenAI benefited between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from his contributions when he helped co-found the organisation in 2015, and Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion through its involvement.

He has asked a United States (US) federal court to award him up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, stating that the companies earned “wrongful gains” from his early support of the artificial intelligence startup.

This is according to a court filing, reported by Reuters.

Musk’s legal team argues that his early financial and strategic contributions, including approximately $38 million in seed funding, the recruitment of key personnel, and assistance in connecting founders with contacts, laid the foundation for the later success of OpenAI and Microsoft’s commercial AI efforts.

“Without Elon Musk, there’d be no OpenAI. He provided the bulk of the seed funding, lent his reputation, and taught them all he knew about scaling a business. A pre-eminent expert quantified the value of that,” Musk’s lead trial lawyer Steven Molo told Reuters.

“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realise gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned—and which Mr Musk is now entitled to disgorge—are much larger than Mr Musk’s initial contributions,” the filing said.

Musk, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and now leads AI company xAI, alleges that OpenAI violated its founding non-profit mission when it restructured to include a for-profit arm tied to Microsoft’s investment and commercial strategy.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has labelled the lawsuit “baseless” and part of a “harassment campaign” by Musk, and Microsoft’s legal team has said there is no evidence the company “aided and abetted” OpenAI in any wrongdoing.

Both companies have asked the judge to limit what Musk’s expert witness may present at trial, arguing that the damages calculations are unreliable and could mislead a jury.

According to Reuters, Musk’s filing says he may pursue punitive damages and other penalties, including a possible injunction, if the jury finds the companies liable, though it did not specify what form any injunction would take.

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E-Business

Nigeria Targeted with 4,622 Cyber-attacks Per Week in December 2025

Published

5 days ago

January 16, 2026

Chike Onwuegbuchi

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In December 2025, organisations globally faced sustained cyber pressure, as the average number of cyber-attacks per organisation per week reached 2 027, a 1% increase from the previous month and a 9% increase from December 2024.

This is according to December 2025 Global Cyber Attack Statistics by Check Point Research, the threat intelligence arm of Check Point Software Technologies.

According to the statistics, Latin America was the hardest hit, with companies experiencing an average of 3 065 cyber-attacks per week, a 26% year-over-year increase.

In contrast, Africa saw a decline in attacks, with Nigeria (4 622 attacks per week) and Angola (4 002 attacks per week) being the most targeted countries on the continent.

The report’s findings highlight the evolving cyber threat landscape, with ransomware and GenAI-driven data risks posing significant challenges to companies worldwide.

Ransomware attacks jumped 60% year over year, with 945 publicly reported incidents in December. Qilin was the most active ransomware operator, responsible for 18% of publicly disclosed attacks.

“Ransomware continues to scale through industrialised operations, while unmanaged GenAI usage is creating widespread data exposure at enterprise level,” said Omer Dembinsky, data research manager at Check Point Research.

The report noted the education sector was the most targeted industry globally, with 4 349 cyber attacks per week; followed by government (2 666 attacks per week); and associations and non-profits (2 509 attacks per week).

The widespread adoption of GenAI tools has introduced new cyber security risks, with one in 27 GenAI prompts posing a high risk of sensitive data leakage.

Experts warn that companies must prioritise prevention-first security, real-time AI threat intelligence and strong governance over AI tools to mitigate these risks.

Hendrik de Bruin, head of security consulting at Check Point Software, added: “Strengthening ransomware resilience, deploying AI-powered prevention and enforcing clear GenAI governance will be critical to reducing cyber risk in the year ahead.”

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