Connect with us

E-Business

Experts Urge Implementation of National Cyber Security Policy & Strategy

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Worried by absence of coordinated approach in the fight against cybercrimes, information and communications technology experts hare seeking the revival of National Cyber security Policy and Strategy document.

 

Speaking at Telecom Executives and Regulators Forum, organised by Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mohammed Rudman, president, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), said the National Cyber security Policy and Strategy is supposed to be the highest document for Nigeria when it comes to cyber security.” It was supposed to be constantly reviewed so that certain frameworks of cyber security will always be added and implemented as security should be constantly reviewed for effectiveness.

 

“It was implemented in February 2015 during federal executive council meeting when they wanted to change the timing of election of 2015, at that time President Jonathan approved that document. Since that time, I have not heard anything from the Office of National Security Adviser regarding that document. That document is the most critical document among all the cyber security documents coming out from NCC and NITDA; they are supposed to be all coordinated to have a national strategy to know where we are going.

 

“The Office of National Security Adviser needs to do more because Computer Emergence Response Team (CERT) is actually an output of that regulation. CERT that is supposed to handle and monitor activities of Nigerians, detect and respond to issues of cyber security derives its power from that document and nothing is been done much,” he noted.

 

Engr. Ike Nnamani, president, Demadiur Systems, publishers of Nigeria Cyber Security report, corroborating Rudman said that National Cyber security Policy and Strategy is a guideline for different organisations to secure their infrastructure against cyber attacks and how they can collaborate as well as report incidences of cybercrimes.

 

“As at today, I don’t know anything about this document after it was approved. What has happened with the absence of its implementation is that organisations and institutions’ cyber security efforts as well as policies are in silos without coordination and collaboration,” he added.

 

On sovereignty of data, Rudman said: “we need to be ambitious in terms of localising our data. The target of NITDA to achieve 30 per cent local cloud adoption in five years is small. I have been an advocate of localising data and traffic in Nigeria for the last 12 years.

 

“I have been pushing that as a country with huge population we can position Nigeria as a hub for internet content in Africa, right now South Africa for example has 70 per cent of their websites registered and hosted in South Africa, while 80 per cent of their internet traffic are localised within South Africa and IP resources they are consuming is 26 per cent.

 

“IP resources Nigeria is consuming is only 3 per cent while we are number seven in the world in the use of internet and people doing this are aware; the telecoms doing Network Address Translation, using private IP addresses.

 

“We need to find ways to be honest to ourselves, find ways within the industry to collaborate while pushing the cloud. If we don’t have a localised cloud services, how can you regulate what you don’t have on ground?

 

“The data centres we are using is somewhere in the world which you don’t know where it is, in fact some of the data centres are hidden, they are in black market. How do you regulate that?

 

“We have the infrastructure on ground with international certified data centres with tier IV, what we need is determination to ensure compliance to directive for our data to be hosted in the country.

 

The biggest government agencies in Nigeria are not hosting their data in the country. You can’t be talking about data sovereignty when almost all your data is outside of the country,” he said.

 

 

 


Kindly share this post

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

E-Business

UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

Published

on

Kindly share this post

United Kingdom has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, mandating that the company create a backdoor to access users’ encrypted iCloud data.

UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

This directive, issued under the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, requires Apple to provide British security officials with the means to retrieve all content uploaded to iCloud by any user worldwide.

Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, introduced in 2022, offers end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, ensuring that only users can access their information.

The UK’s demand challenges this security measure, potentially compelling Apple to either comply by creating the backdoor or withdraw the ADP feature from the UK market.

Compliance could set a precedent, leading other governments to request similar access, thereby raising global privacy concerns.

The UK Home Office has declined to confirm or deny the existence of such notices, stating, “We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”

This development underscores the ongoing tension between governmental surveillance efforts and technology companies’ commitments to user privacy.

 


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

E-Business

Oracle Adds AI Pricing Features to Financial Software

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Oracle on Thursday added another set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to NetSuite, one of its corporate finance software offerings, including some that might make it faster for consumers to get a price quote on purchases like custom bicycles.

Oracle has taken a different tack with AI than rivals such as Microsoft. Rather than racing toward general purpose virtual assistants, Oracle has decided to add targeted features that speed common-but-tedious tasks like entering a brief write-up of how a sales meeting went into a corporate records system.

Another such task that is common in the business world is giving a customer a price quote on a complicated purchase that might have a lot of options, when a sales professional would need to sift through materials to come up with a price.

NetSuite on Thursday announced a feature to compile such a quote via conversation with a chatbot asking what the customer wants, which can either be used by sales professionals behind the scenes to speed up their work, or directly by consumers in the case of e-commerce businesses.

“When you buy something like a bicycle, you have to configure it – figure out what parts you want and which parts work together. We all do it when we buy our cars on the web these days,” Evan Goldberg, executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, said.

“If you can configure (products) for customers more easily, you can do more deals in a day, or each deal costs less.”

To power those features, Oracle has decided to skip the costly race to develop huge AI models and instead works with partners such as Canadian startup Cohere.

Goldberg said that Oracle’s recent agreement to build massive data centers with ChatGPT creator OpenAI could lead to working with it as well, though the two firms have made no formal announcements.

“I think you could safely say that there’s a possibility that OpenAI will be part of this,” Goldberg told Reuters. “We are eager to work with OpenAI.”

 


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

E-Business

IBM Exits Nigeria and Ghana, Transfers Operations to MIBB

Published

on

Kindly share this post

IBM, the American multinational technology giant, has reportedly announced plans to exit Nigeria, Ghana, and other key African markets, transferring its regional operations to MIBB, a subsidiary of the Midis Group.

IBM Exits Nigeria and Ghana, Transfers Operations to MIBB

The move, which according to TechCabal was revealed in a statement by the company, effective April 1 2025, is part of a new operating model IBM is adopting across select African countries.

Under this arrangement, MIBB will take over IBM’s local operations, customer support, and relationships while marketing and selling IBM products and services across 36 African nations.

“MIBB will market and sell IBM products and services in 36 African countries, thereby giving MIBB’s sales network direct access to IBM products, services, and support, further boosting innovation and growth in the region,” IBM stated.

IBM has been a key player in Africa’s tech industry for decades, providing critical infrastructure for banking, telecom, oil and gas, and government services.

However, its planned exit follows a trend of multinational corporations leaving Nigeria.

In December 2024, Swiss cement giant Holcim announced its departure from Nigeria, selling its 83% stake in Lafarge to a Chinese firm.

Similarly, South African grocery retailer Pick n Pay disclosed plans in October 2024 to exit Nigeria by selling its 51% stake in a joint venture.

IBM has yet to respond to media inquiries regarding the specifics of its transition strategy and reasons for the exit.


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Trending