E-Business
Cybersecurity: Checkpoint 2017 Prediction on What Lies Ahead
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” as Nils Bohr, the Nobel laureate physicist put it. But as the end of 2016 approaches, it’s useful to look forward and try to anticipate the cybersecurity trends that lie ahead; and to reflect on what’s happened over the past year, to see how accurate previous predictions were. For 2016, our predicted security threats were:
The emergence of sophisticated and custom-designed malware designed to get past organizations’ defences. Attackers are using bespoke variants of existing malware, which can bypass traditional antivirus and sandboxing tools – our 2016 Security Report revealed that 971 unknown malware variants were downloaded to enterprise networks every hour.
Rick Rogers, Area Manager for East and West Africa at Check Point Software Technologies gives their security predictions for the coming year:
Mobile Attacks – we predicted these to increase as mobile devices became more commonplace in the workplace, offering hackers direct and potentially lucrative access to personal and corporate data.
This too was borne out – we saw major vulnerabilities like Quadroote remerge and new zero day threats discovered, as well as ongoing increases in mobile malware targeting vulnerabilities.
Attacks on Critical Infrastructure – we expected these to rise as cybercriminals seek to take advantage of both the inherent vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure computer systems and the potentially huge damage that can be wreaked. Sure enough, an attack using BlackEnergy malware struck a Ukraine power company, Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, was targeted by a DDoS attack and the SCADA systems of the Bowman Dam in Rye, New York were attacked too.
Cybercriminality taking advantage of the growing Internet of Things and targeting smart devices. This year saw one of the largest DDoS attacks ever targeting security blogger Brian Krebs’ website, which was launched from millions of IoT security cameras and similar devices.
Unfortunately, our predictions for 2016 proved to be accurate. Like most cybersecurity professionals, I would prefer that they were not realized. I would much rather organisations didn’t get infected by malware, hacked, or suffer data breaches. But by predicting the next wave of threats, we hope to help organizations stay one step ahead of cybercriminals’ exploits. So here are our five key security predictions for 2017:
Mobile: moving targets
As attacks on mobile devices continue to grow, we can expect to see enterprise breaches that originate on mobile devices becoming a more significant corporate security concern.
The recent discovery of not one, butthree zero-day vulnerabilities in Apple’s iOS following an attempted attack on a human rights activist’s phone highlights how rapidly the mobile surveillance and cybercrime industry is expanding – and the need for organizations to deploy protections on their mobile estates against malware, interception of communications and other vulnerabilities.
IT and OT convergence
In the coming year, we expect to see cyberattacks spreading further into the Industrial IoT. The convergence of informational technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is making both environments more vulnerable, particularly the operational technology of SCADA environments. These environments often run legacy systems for which patches are either not available, or worse, simply not used.
Many critical industrial control systems are open to the Internet – a recent report found over 188,000 systems in 170 countries were accessible this way. 91% were remotely exploitable by hackers, and over 3% had exploitable vulnerabilities.
Manufacturing, as an industry, will need to extend both systems and physical security controls to the logical space and implement threat prevention solutions across both IT and OT environments.
Critical infrastructure
Once again, we’re placing critical infrastructure in our predictions for the coming year – globally, it remains highly vulnerable to cyberattack. Nearly all critical infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, electricity grids and telecoms networks, was designed and built before the threat of cyberattacks. In early 2016, the first blackout caused intentionally by a cyberattack was reported.
Security planners in critical infrastructure need to plan for the possibility that their networks and systems will see attack methods consistent with multiple potential threat actors: nation-state, terrorism and organized crime.
Threat prevention
For enterprises, we predict that ransomware will become as prevalent as DDoS attacks. Like DDoS attacks, successful ransomware infections can shut down a business’s day-to-day operations, and mitigating them demands a multi-faceted prevention strategy, including advanced sandboxing and threat extraction.
Businesses will also need to consider alternative ways to cope with the people who launch ransomware campaigns.
Collaborative strategies like coordinated takedowns with industry peers and law enforcement will be essential. While paying a ransom is never recommended because it encourages future attacks, sometimes it is the only option for recovering data and the ability to function.
As such, the establishment of financial reserves to speed up payments will become increasingly common.
We also predict more targeted attacks to influence or silence an organization, with ‘legitimate’ actors launching such attacks. The current US Presidential campaign shows this possibility and will serve as a precedent for future campaigns.
Cloud cover
As enterprises continue to put more data on the cloud, providing a backdoor for hackers to access other enterprise systems, an attack to disrupt or take down a major cloud provider will affect all of their customers’ businesses – as we saw with the recent DDoS attack against domain directory service DynDNS. While generally disruptive, it would be used to impact a specific competitor or organization, who would be one of many affected, making it difficult to determine motive.
We expect to see a rise in ransomware attacks impacting cloud-based datacenters too.
As more organizations embrace the cloud, both public and private, these types of attacks will start finding their way into this new infrastructure, through either encrypted files spreading from cloud to cloud or by hackers using the cloud as a volume multiplier.
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.
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.
Federal government has launched a drive to standardise operations across all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) through the nationwide adoption of the new National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System.
Dr Bosun Tijani, minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, launched the initiative at a high-level stakeholder workshop on Thursday in Abuja.
The conference, themed “Embedding the Nigerian Digital Postcode in Public Service Delivery,” brought together key stakeholders to discuss the adoption of the system across government institutions.
Represented by Nadungu Gagare, permanent secretary of the Ministry, declared that the initiative was a critical pillar for the country’s economic and security framework.
“The Nigerian Digital Postcode represents far more than an improvement to postal services. It is a strategic national asset. Without accurate location intelligence, governments struggle to plan effectively, emergency responders lose valuable time, and financial institutions face verification challenges,” he said.
Tijani said the Alphanumeric digital postcode system was a pathway and a defining moment for Nigeria’s digital transformation under the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
He said an accurate national addressing system would enable government agencies to plan better, improve emergency response, support credible census and elections, expand financial inclusion and ensure citizens were not excluded from essential services because of poor location data.
The Minister commended NIPOST for leading the initiative and urged MDAs and state governments to integrate the system into their operations, stressing that its success would depend on collaboration, interoperability, and nationwide adoption.
Omotola Odeyemi, postmaster general and chief executive officer, Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), explained that the digital postcode system creates a “common language of location” for the entire government.
She urged federal and subnational entities to integrate the infrastructure into their daily operations to maximise its value.
“Just as digital identity has helped to establish who a citizen is, this National Digital Postcode helps us to determine where services, opportunities, and interventions should be delivered. Its success will not be measured by the number of postcodes that we generate but by the lives that we improve,” the NIPOST boss explained.
Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack, head of the Civil Service of the Federation, represented by Dr Abdul Sule Garba, permanent Secretary of the Service Welfare Office, pledged full administrative backing for the rollout.
She noted that the civil service would be properly equipped to adapt to the data-driven system.
“The operationalisation of the Nigerian digital postcode is a strategic initiative that has the potential to significantly improve public administration, service delivery, and digital governance across the country,” Mrs Walson-Jack added.
The workshop featured live demonstrations and technical panel sessions focused on linking the new digital postcode system directly into national healthcare, social protection, education, and electoral planning.
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