All is now set for the first virtual meeting on the Internet Protocol version Six (IPv6) on Saturday, June 6, 2020, to be hosted by ITREALMS Online, a multiple international award-winning medium, with specialty on coverage of business of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

The webinar being hosted in collaboration with DigitalSENSE Africa has confirmed key speakers, including the chairman, IPv6 Council Nigeria, Mr. Muhammed Rudman and Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), who both would be leading discourse on the overall theme: on “Role of Internet Protocol (IP) in 5G vs COVID-19 Debate.”

Confirming this, Remmy Nweke, editor-in-chief of ITREALMS Media, said the webinar has been slated in commemoration of the World IPv6 Day, 2020 as part of the media house drive for education and enlightenment under its digital rights series.

According to Nweke, this year’s theme would focus on “Role of IP in 5G v COVID-19 Debate” with some subthemes, for the webinar slated for Saturday, June 6, by 10am Universal Time 11am Nigeria time at ITREALMS Zoom Webinar with Meeting ID: 748 9663 7846 and  Password: 3ggKaz.

He recalled that a collaborating organization, DigitalSENSE Africa, has been leading this effort under the aegis of the Nigeria IPv6 Roundtable in commemoration of the World Internet Protocol Version Six (IPv6) Day, celebrated every June 6; to promote the adoption of IPv6 for the products and services as well as create awareness, especially in Nigeria.

He noted that ITREALMS is collaborating with DigitalSENSE Africa, an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) accredited At-Large Structure (ALS), which brought IPv6 awareness to Nigeria since 2011.

Nweke also said that this year’s virtual event is to sustain the awareness around the IPv6 evolution despite the Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, which trajectory kickoff was occasioned by the depletion of the Internet Protocol version Four (IPv4), over eight years ago.

Equally he revealed that experts have been selected to speak to the theme of this year “Role of IP in 5G v COVID-19 Debate” urging interested public to join in the webinar to know more on the theme.

Some of the confirmed key speakers, he said, include the chairman, IPv6 Council Nigeria, Mr. Muhammed Rudman who would be dwelling on subtheme of “IPv6 Evolution & 5G” and chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, would lead discussion on “ALTON: 5G vs COVID-19.”

Coronation Merchant Bank remains one of the top rated merchant Banks in Nigeria as shown by the recently released Rating Report by Agusto&Co , a foremost rating agency in Nigeria.

In the Report, Agusto&Co affirmed the A+ rating assigned to the Bank with stable outlook and stated that the rating reflects the Bank’s position in the merchant banking space, good capitalisation, good asset quality and good liquidity position.

In preparing the report, the agency took into cognisance the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to severe uncertainty surrounding the Nigerian economy. A review of the Bank’s financial performance showed that as at 31 December 2019, the Bank’s gross loans and advances stood at ₦72.7 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 33.9%.

As at FYE 2019, the Bank did not record any credit deterioration with the entire credit portfolio classified under stage 1. Core capital grew by 6.3% to ₦33.7 billion as at FYE 2019, more than double the regulatory minimum for merchant banks operating in Nigeria.

As at the same date, the Bank’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 19.2% surpassing the 10% regulatory threshold. As at March 2020, Coronation MB had about US$310 million in trade finance lines including a US$40 million trade finance guarantee facility obtained from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The Bank’s intended five-year bond is also expected to support funding stability. Overall, the rating agency is of the opinion that the Bank is adequately positioned to grow business volumes, albeit moderated by the prevailing economic conditions.

The total number of mobile applications identified as malicious in Q1 2020 has doubled compared to Q1 2019.

The first quarter also saw a 55% spike in the number of fraudulent mobile transactions and an increase in the number of malware-infected mobile devices.

This is according to a new report released by Secure-D, Upstream’s full-stack anti-fraud platform, that covered 31 mobile operators in 20 countries at the beginning of 2020.

In Q1 the security platform detected over 29 000 malicious apps versus just over 14 500 during the same period last year.

Concerningly, the data shows that nine of the top 10 malicious apps in the first quarter of 2020 are, or were at some stage, available on Google Play, meaning they have slipped through security nets.

Six of the top 10 malicious apps fall under the vague description of ‘leisure apps” and include apps such as video players and editors, news and magazines, games and social apps.

Geoffrey Cleaves, head of Secure-D at Upstream, says: “With the majority of the world having shifted indoors, there were some darker forces acting to make a profit from the lockdown situation. At Secure-D, we’ve seen a sharp increase in bad actors publishing leisure apps on the Google Play Store, which trick users into subscribing for premium services.”

He says fraudsters tend to target Android handsets because the operating system is easier to work with, with a host of unofficial places to download apps from. In markets such as Brazil, a large percentage of users use prepaid credit to purchase digital services, enabling bad actors to subscribe users to services without their knowledge.

Snaptube, a video downloader app, has proved the most troublesome app to date this year. It has been downloaded more than 40 million times worldwide.

Last year, the Secure-D platform logged 70 million fraudulent transactions through the same app, with more than half of them in Brazil. Despite being reported by Upstream in October last year, the app is still available through many third-party app stores.

“The Secure-D platform has blocked more than 32 million fraudulent transactions relating to Snaptube so far in 2020,” says Cleaves.

Fraudulent transactions

In addition, during Q1 2020 Upstream’s security platform processed over 326 million mobile transactions and blocked almost 290 million, having identified 89% of total transactions as fraudulent.

The data highlights a significant rise in the number of global transactions blocked as fraudulent, up 55% from the previous year when 186 million were blocked out of the 208 million transactions processed.

In terms of infected devices, Secure-D saw a rise of 7% compared to last year’s first quarter. In Q1 2020 11.2 million malware-infected devices were detected, compared to 10.5 million the year before.

“It is unknown at this stage how the COVID-19 pandemic will shape 2020 figures, but the impact is likely to be significant,” says Cleaves.