E-Business
How Big Data & Analytics Will Play In 2015

In its Worldwide Big Data and Analytics 2015 Predictions web conference, International Data Corporation (IDC) yesterday hosted the IDC FutureScape, provided organizations with insight and perspective on long-term industry trends along with new themes that may be on the horizon.
The web conference series and accompanying IDC FutureScape reports are designed to help company leaders capitalize on emerging market opportunities and plan for future growth.
The predictions from the IDC FutureScape for Big Data and Analytics are:
Visual data discovery tools will be growing 2.5x faster than rest of the BI market. By 2018 investing in this enabler of end user self-service will become a requirement for all enterprises.
Over the next 5 years spending on cloud-based BDA solutions will grow 3x faster than spending for on-premise solutions. Hybrid on/off premise deployments will become a requirement.
Shortage of skilled staff will persist. In the U.S. alone there will be 181k deep analytics roles in 2018 and 5x that many positions requiring related skills in data management and interpretation.
By 2017 unified data platform architecture will become the foundation of BDA strategy. The unification will occur across information management, analysis, and search technology.
Growth in applications incorporating advanced and predictive analytics, including machine learning, will accelerate in 2015. These apps will grow 65% faster than apps without predictive functionality.
70% of large organizations already purchase external data and 100% will do so by 2019. In parallel more organizations will begin to monetize their data by selling them or providing Value Added Content.
Adoption of technology to continuously analyze streams of events will accelerate in 2015 as it is applied to IoT analytics – which is expected to grow at a 5-year CAGR of 30%.
Decision management platforms will expand at a CAGR of 60% through 2019 in response to the need for greater consistency in decision making and decision making process knowledge retention.
Rich media (video, audio, image) analytics will at least triple in 2015 and emerge as the key driver for BDA technology investment.
By 2018 half of all consumers will interact with services based on cognitive computing on a regular basis.
“Leading organizations are changing how they measure their operations, interactions with customers, and resource allocations,” said Dan Vesset program VP for Business Analytics and Big Data research. “Faster access to more relevant data and constant experimentation is creating a further gap between leaders and the rest of the organizations. It is also creating new challenges for IT and business leaders tasked with their organization’s big data and analytics strategy and execution.”
The IDC FutureScape report that this web conference is based on will be published and available within the next 24 hours.
IDC FutureScapes are used to shape IT strategy and planning for the enterprise by providing a basic framework for evaluating IT initiatives in terms of their value to business strategy now and in the foreseeable future.
E-Business
NIMC Says NIN Services Back Online

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced the restoration of its National Identification Number (NIN) verification services nationwide.
This, according to the commission, follows the completion of a system maintenance exercise.
In a statement issued on Friday, the NIMC confirmed that all previously disrupted services have resumed.
“NIMC wishes to inform the general public that the recent technical maintenance has been completed and all services have been restored,” the statement read.
The NIMC urged Nigerians seeking to enroll for NIN to visit the its official website to locate the nearest enrollment centers.
The agency also encouraged individuals to make use of its self-service portal for tasks such as data modification, including name changes.
To further ease the verification process, the Commission recommended downloading the NIMC NameAuth app (oath.app) from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for quick and secure NIN authentication.
NIMC expressed appreciation for the public’s patience during the service disruption, which had impacted banks, telecom providers, and government agencies that rely on NIN verification for their operations.
E-Business
Report Reveals African Organizations Dangerously Overestimating Cyber defences

Many businesses are overestimating their defence against cyber attacks, which creates a significant human risk blind spot. A new KnowBe4 report exposes a worrying disconnect between what leaders think about their cyber security readiness and what employees experience.
According to the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, based on insights from cyber security decision-makers across 30 African countries, despite high awareness, a critical gap exists in turning that awareness into actual readiness and resilient behaviour.
Key findings from the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025:
Confidence vs awareness: While cyber security awareness is high, leaders express uncertainty about their workforce’s ability to act on that awareness. Many feel employees may overestimate their capabilities in recognising, reporting and mitigating threats.
The need for adaptive and personalised security awareness training: Many companies fail to personalise security awareness training to specific roles or risk exposures.
Widespread BYOD usage: A large percentage of employees (between 41% and 80%) use their personal devices for work.
AI policy development is lagging: Many companies (46%) are still in the process of developing policies for using AI tools in the workplace.
Regional variation: Southern Africa trains more, East Africa governs AI better and West/Central Africa sees the most human-related security incidents.
This gap is significant because Africa has become an attractive target to cyber criminals, especially those that launch AI-powered attacks. A LexisNexis Risk Solutions study found 60% of South African organisations have seen an increase in AI-facilitated financial crime – above the 56% global average.
Kehinde Popoola, regional manager and key representative for West and East Africa at Rubrik, said digital transformation is gaining momentum in Africa and companies are more exposed to cyber risk. The Rubrik executive adds that amid an increase in threats, it is crucial that organisations adopt an assumed breach mindset.
The KnowBe4 research shows that cyber security preparedness and the actual structures required to support secure behaviour seem misaligned.
The report highlights that just 10% of cyber security leaders are fully confident that staff would report a phishing attack or other cyber threat, despite rating employee security awareness of cyber threats at four out of five or higher.
There is also a significant perception gap between decision-makers and general employees in Africa regarding security awareness training, with 68% of leaders believing that training is tailored to roles, compared to only a third of employees feeling adequately trained.
KnowBe4 asserts that many organisations only conduct annual or biannual training that is too generic to effectively change behaviour, contributing to uncertainty about its effectiveness.
According to another report, the KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity and Awareness Report 2025, which focuses on end-user based responses, only 43% of African respondents felt confident in their ability to recognise a cyber threat, and just one in three believed their security awareness training was adequately tailored to their role. This comparison suggests the development of a dangerous perception gap in many organisations.
“There’s a disconnect here – between what leaders think is happening and what employees are actually experiencing,” says Anna Collard, SVP content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “The data shows that without procedural and cultural follow-through, awareness simply doesn’t translate into readiness.”
“The continent’s cyber security posture may be more confident than it is truly resilient,” Collard adds.
E-Business
Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats

Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.
Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.
The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.
It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.
After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.
Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.
“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.
Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.
- Telecom1 day ago
MTN Nigeria Debuts Game-Changing CPaaS Platform at NextNow Forum
- Telecom2 days ago
NCC Approves MTN, 9Mobile Roaming Collaboration Deal
- E-Financial1 day ago
NAICOM Issues New Licenses to SanlamAllianz Life, General Insurance
- E-Financial1 day ago
GTCO to Become First Nigerian Bank to List on London Stock Exchange
- E-Financial2 days ago
World Bank Approves Extra $65m for Nigeria’s SPESSE
- E-Business1 day ago
Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats
- News1 day ago
AMCON Confirms ₦100Bn Sale of Ibadan DisCo Amid Legal Disputes
- E-Financial2 days ago
Ecobank Taps Google Cloud to Deepen Financial Inclusion