E-Business
Five Steps to Evaluating a DDoS Managed Service Provider
The news that the Southern African Department of Labour was recently able to foil a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on one of its external facing servers in early September reminds us that businesses and governments must remain vigilant at all times
While this DDOS attack was unsuccessful, a 2016 attack in Liberia, West Africa took the entire country offline for a week, when a Mirai botnet variant known as Botnet 14 spent seven continuous days on the offensive, flooding the two companies that co-owned the fibre going into country with 600 Gbps flows that overwhelmed its infrastructure. https://threatpost.com/ddos-attacks-get-bigger-smarter-and-more-diverse/134028/
Bryan Hamman, territory manager for sub-Saharan Africa at NETSCOUT Arbor, which specialises in advanced distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection solutions, said, “We know that DDoS attackers will target anyone today, from SMEs that might have valuable data, to banks with sophisticated security systems, all the way to governments at the level of a sovereign nation. By using multiple compromised computer systems to attack a target and cause a denial of service for legitimate users, a flood of incoming information forces the target system to slow down or even crash. And so vigilance remains the eternal watchword.”
In this vein, NETSCOUT Arbor says the case for a managed DDoS protection and mitigation service is well established as partnering with a provider that can oversee your organisation’s security operations takes a critical IT management issue off your plate, boosts your staff resources, and gives you access to specialised DDoS expertise. But not all managed DDoS services are alike.
Hamman clarified, “When you are choosing your managed DDoS service provider, NETSCOUT Arbor outlines the following key areas to look out for: the flexibility to handle customised workflows; customer-focused reporting and intelligence; adequate network size; the experience of the provider’s IT team; and a best-practice hybrid solution.”
Flexibility to handle custom workflows: Your organisation may already have some operational processes and procedures in place for dealing with DDoS threats. A managed service provider should be able to adapt and align to you, rather than requiring you to change your processes. “You may wish to ask questions such as: Under what scenarios do you want the service provider to initiate mitigation action on its own, or seek your authorisation? Can the provider support different actions based on different alert types or event levels?” says Hamman.
Customer-focused reporting and intelligence: A good DDoS provider will deliver reports detailing the latest incidents and the actions taken in response to security events.
However, a DDoS provider that is prepared to take their service to the next level above this will take a more proactive, consultative approach, which leverages global threat intelligence as the basis for recommendations to improve your security posture. A managed service provider should also be able to supply executive-level reporting that enables you to demonstrate ROI and key metrics for the C-suite.
Size of network: NETSCOUT Arbor says DDoS attacks are growing in sheer size and rapidly approaching terabyte territory, due largely to amplification techniques and the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) botnets. The capacity to absorb and disperse the largest known attacks is imperative. Equally important is a distributed infrastructure, with multiple locations that enables mitigation to take place as close to the source of attack as possible. This not only avoids “choke points” – it accelerates time-to-mitigation cycles.
While absolute network size is an important consideration, so too is the amount of capacity dedicated to DDoS mitigation. A dedicated provider is critical to mitigating massive attacks. It should be noted that managed service providers support multiple customers, and there is always the risk that several will be hit at once. It is not enough, therefore, to have capacity levels that are equal to or even twice the size of any potential attack. Rather, the network must be several orders of magnitude bigger than the largest known attacks. Ten terabytes of capacity is quickly becoming the standard that will define the modern, managed DDoS provider.
Experience of team: A good provider will be highly reliant on automation. Over and above this, your provider of choice needs to understand that foiling threat actors takes human intelligence – the ability to recognise and analyse a real attack, understand its origins and quickly determine its objectives. “Therefore,” says Hamman, “your provider of choice should have dedicated research teams with decades of experience studying, analysing and overseeing the successful mitigation of DDoS attack, as well as excellent security expertise from team members with diverse professional backgrounds and complementary skills.”
Best-practice hybrid solution: Increasingly, security experts agree that a hybrid solution, combining on-premise and cloud capabilities, is the best defence against DDoS attacks. The on-premise component can typically capture the vast majority of malicious traffic. If an attack threatens to exhaust the capacity of an on-premise appliance, the cloud capability can automatically activate. Today, on-premise defences can be virtualised. With a fully managed service, costs are offset by a reduction in staffing requirements. And you only pay for as much cloud capacity you consume.
“As we’ve reported previously, data from the NETSCOUT Arbor Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report (WISR) for 2018 showed that South Africa was within the top 10 of countries targeted by DDoS attacks for both the 2018 and 2017 WISR reports. DDoS defences simply cannot be emphasised enough,” concludes Hamman.
Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has reaffirmed its commitment to implementing a National Digital Postcode System to assign a unique digital address to every addressable building across the country.
Speaking at the unveiling of the Post Code Delineation Model Validation 2026 in Abuja, Tola Odeyemi, postmaster general and chief executive officer, NIPOST, said the initiative would establish a machine-readable standard location-address framework for buildings nationwide.
“Postcode is basically a framework used to have a machine-readable standard location address for every addressable building in Nigeria,” Odeyemi said.
She explained that the project would place Nigeria among the first countries in Africa to develop a postcode system down to the unit level, ensuring that each standing building is assigned a unique code.
According to her, the digital postcode system is expected to enhance service delivery, logistics operations, emergency response, and national planning by improving the identification of locations across the country.
Odeyemi noted that the diversity of Nigeria’s geography necessitated different approaches to address mapping and postcode allocation.
“Nigeria is a large country. We have all the way from the top of Nigeria, which is almost like the Sahel, to the Savannah, to the Middle Belt, to the tropical South and even to the riverine areas.
“The logic that will work for Jigawa is not the same logic that will work for Bayelsa because they have completely different geographical expressions, density of buildings, population distribution, and topography,” she said.
She said the postcode delineation process was designed to ensure that postcode boundaries align with existing administrative structures and do not overlap local government boundaries.
“Delineation has to make sure the postcode does not pass administrative boundaries, and it must not go across two local government areas,” Odeyemi stated.
The NIPOST boss further explained that the validation exercise involves testing aerially mapped polygons against actual settlement patterns and geographical realities in different parts of the country.
“To test the polygons we have drawn aerially, we must ensure they accurately reflect realities on the ground. For example, the density of buildings in Lagos, particularly in Mushin, is very different from the density of buildings in Abuja. We are making sure that density maps and topographical features are properly captured for each state in Nigeria,” she said.
She described the Post Code Delineation Model Validation exercise as a critical stage in the agency’s broader digital addressing initiative, which seeks to create a comprehensive and standardised postcode framework for the country.
Nigeria has long grappled with an inefficient addressing system, making it difficult to accurately identify locations for postal services, logistics, emergency response, and public planning.
NIPOST’s National Digital Postcode System is part of efforts to create a standardised and technology-driven addressing framework that assigns a unique code to every addressable building in the country.
As digital financial services continue to grow globally, cyber threats are becoming more advanced, more automated, and more financially damaging. In Nigeria, where digital payments are becoming a part of everyday life, these threats pose significant risks to both consumers and financial institutions.
Industry reports continue to show that account takeover remains one of the dominant fraud issues in Nigeria, accounting for a significant share of 43% banking-related losses reported to Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS). Between early 2023 and mid-2025, the financial sector is estimated to have lost hundreds of billions of naira to digital fraud, while 281,500 user accounts have been exposed through breaches and leaks in Q1 alone.
Responding to this kind of threat environment requires more than a single line of defence. It requires a broader security model that combines intelligence, automation, identity verification, and ecosystem collaboration.
PalmPay, leading digital payments platform, has built its cybersecurity framework on a multi-layered security architecture designed to anticipate, detect, and mitigate risks before they escalate. Rather than relying on a single line of defence, PalmPay integrates AI-driven fraud monitoring, continuous risk assessment, behavioural analysis, and multi-layer authentication to strengthen account protection.
One important part of this approach is biometric and facial verification. As account takeover attempts increasingly exploit stolen credentials, identity verification has become one of the most effective tools in combating fraud. By combining facial verification with PIN and OTP authentication, PalmPay introduces multiple layers of protection that help ensure access is tied to the legitimate account owner, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
Complementing this is PalmPay’s Fraud Case Management System that enhances how potential fraud incidents are detected, analysed, and managed. By centralising fraud intelligence and enabling faster response times, the system helps security teams identify emerging patterns and intervene more proactively.
PalmPay’s Anti-Fraud Manager, Omoruyi Aiyudu, commented: “Fraud prevention today requires a shift from isolated security controls to a connected, intelligence-driven security ecosystem. At PalmPay, we leverage AI-driven fraud detection, behavioural analytics, and multi-layered authentication to identify and mitigate risks in real time. We continue to invest in advanced technologies to strengthen account security and build a safer, more resilient digital financial ecosystem for our users.”
Ecosystem Collaboration
Cybersecurity does not stop at internal controls. Stronger outcomes also depend on collaboration across the wider financial ecosystems.
PalmPay continues to work with regulators, law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to support stronger cybercrime detection and response capabilities. One example is collaboration with the Nigerian Cybersecurity Unit of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), including support through the provision of advanced equipment designed to enhance fraud detection and investigation capacity.
The company also recently collaborated with the Nigerian Data Protection Commission on a specialized data protection training to enhance internal data governance practices and advance compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023.
These efforts reflect a broader view of security, one that recognizes that customer protection depends not only on technology, but also on governance, institutional cooperation, and responsible data handling.
PalmPay also believes that effective cybersecurity requires active participation from every stakeholder in the digital ecosystem. This is why user awareness remains an important part of its approach. Technology can reduce risk, but informed behaviour remains one of the strongest protections against fraud.
As cyber threats continue to evolve, the future of cybersecurity will depend on organisations adopting intelligent, adaptive, and collaborative security models. AI-led security solutions are no longer optional; they are becoming essential to staying ahead of increasingly sophisticated threats, strengthening customer trust, and the digital economy.
Galaxy Backbone (GBB) Limited has mapped out strategies to strengthen Nigeria’s digital infrastructure in order to make the country globally competitive in the face of Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and other emerging technologies aimed at securing the digital future of the country.
Prof Ibrahim Adeyanju, managing director and CEO of GBB, made this known during a press conference to unveil a flurry of activities to celebrate the 20th anniversary of GBB in Abuja on Monday, stressing that Galaxy Backbone has evolved from a connectivity provider into one of Nigeria’s most strategic digital infrastructure institutions.
Galaxy Backbone is a public enterprise of the Federal Government of Nigeria incorporated in 2006 with the primary mandate of setting up and operating a unified Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure platform that addresses the connectivity, transversal and other technology imperatives for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal government and private entities.
He said in the last 20 years, the agency has invested in world-class data centre infrastructure, including uptime certified Tier III and Tier IV facilities that provide secure, resilient and reliable environments for hosting missions critical to systems and applications.
He noted that these facilities strengthen data sovereignty, ensure business continuity and help keep Nigeria’s most critical digital assets secure.
“Through our cloud infrastructure and the 1Government Cloud platform, government institutions can access scalable digital services without the burden of building costly infrastructure independently. This shared-services model improves efficiency, reduces costs and accelerates innovation.
“We have delivered platforms such as GovMail (the homegrown Official government email), collaboration tools, hosting services, connectivity solutions and shared applications that support thousands of public servants and hundreds of institutions every day,” he said.
He emphasized that the true value of Galaxy Backbone is not measured by kilometres of fibre, data centres or technology alone but by impact.
He explained that the GBB fibre infrastructure today spans almost 30 states of the federation, connecting government institutions and creating the foundation for digital government even as he pledged that the remaining states and local areas will all be captured in due course.
On cyber security, the GBB boss noted that the agency has strengthened cybersecurity capabilities and continues to invest in protecting government systems and critical national digital assets, against cyber-attacks.
“We have the digital infrastructure and we are collaborating with partners to use these emerging technologies. We also have a top tier cyber security operation center and they are multilayered such that even when there is a spike in cyber-attacks none of them have been successful so far.
He added that the GBB is collaborating with other government agencies like the National Security Adviser, The Nigeria Police, and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to ensure that government information is protected.
Ibrahim Sani Mohammed, executive director Finance and Corporate Services of the GBB, while fielding questions noted that the agency has created enormous value and has contributed immensely in the digital ecosystem of Nigeria helping to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Olusegun Olulade, executive director Customer Centrality and Marketing of the GBB, said that customers have remained the formidable partners in the GBB journey of 20 years, adding that the agency has developed the mechanism to ensure customer satisfaction as it intensifies efforts to build trust.
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