E-Business
Hackers Now Target Financial, Intellectual Property
International Data Corporation (IDC) said that hackers have shifted their ultimate goals from disruption and notoriety to financial and intellectual property theft as advanced threats drive high growth in new product segment.
According to the IT research power house, hackers’ tactics have changed accordingly. The malware used today is increasingly target specific and stealthy, often evading signature-based defenses. Further, since the malware itself is simply a tool for the collection and exfiltration of data, sophisticated attackers are using different pieces of code for each phase of the offensive, making the detection of advanced attacks much more difficult.
To defend against these specialized threats, IDC said, a new segment of products has emerged that leverage a variety of technologies above and beyond signature-based defenses.
Recognizing this, IDC even defined a new competitive security market segment dubbed Specialized Threat Analysis and Protection (STAP).
STAP products must use a predominantly signature-less technology (i.e., sandboxing, emulation, big data analytics, containerization) to detect malicious activity. These solutions can be based at the network level, on the endpoint, or both, and scan both inbound and outbound traffic for anomalies including botnet and command and control traffic.
The market also includes products that allow for the reverse engineering and forensic analysis of discovered malware.
The worldwide market for STAP solutions is forecast to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.2% from 2012 through 2017 with revenues reaching $1.17 billion in 2017.
“Organizations have quickly begun to realize that they need improved protection against targeted attacks,” said John Grady, Research Manager with IDC’s Security Products group. “IDC has seen these solutions become a strategic necessity for many organizations, especially in the financial services and government sectors, with budget being quickly allocated to prioritize deployment.”
Products in the STAP market remain incredibly varied, though they all tackle the same fundamental issue of bringing visibility and protection against threats that legacy security products are unable to address.
Additional findings from IDC’s research include the following: Many STAP solutions today are deployed in a layered fashion (e.g. endpoint and network-based solutions), meaning that not all vendors in this market compete against one another.
In many cases, there remains a gap between detection and remediation, although vendors are moving quickly to address this.
Ultimately, many STAP functions will be incorporated into traditional security products, although IDC believes this will be towards the end of the forecast period.
The IDC study, Worldwide Specialized Threat Analysis and Protection 2013-2017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares, examines the STAP market and provides a market size for 2011, vendor shares for 2012, and a forecast for 2013–2017.
Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
NIBBS: Banks Close 29.4m Accounts, Dormant Accounts Hit 33.39m
NDPC Hides MultiChoice Privacy Violation Details Despite FOI Request- FIJ
Cardoso, CBN Boss Risks Arrest over Alleged N5.2 Trillion Unremitted Funds
UK Businesses Look to Africa As Strategic Growth Partners
FG Plans N50m STEEM Grant to Support Student Innovation in August
Telecom2 days agoGlo Launches Nigeria’s First-of-its-kind Device Protection Plan
Telecom2 days agoTelcos: How and Why Network Services have Been Poor
Broadcasting2 days agoCanal+ Clears Final Hurdle to Acquire South Africa’s MultiChoice
E-Business2 days agoNIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website
Telecom2 days agoMTN Executive Adeola Oduntan Emerges as Africa’s Supply Chain Leader of 2025
- Telecom2 days ago
MTN Nigeria Sweeps Africa’s Procurement Awards With Innovation and Impact
E-Business2 days agoMicrosoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups
Telecom2 days agoTelegram to allow U.S. users send, receive crypto directly in app