E-Business
Microsoft Builds Media Capacity on Office 365, Windows 8.1
Microsoft Nigeria exposed journalists to benefits of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Windows 8.1 at a one-day capacity building training for the Nigeria IT media.
The training was held by Microsoft in conjunction with its Gold certified partner, Ha-Shem Network Services Limited, also known for its world class IT solutions and training.
Office 365 is a major offering within Office 2013 which is the next iteration of Microsoft’s flagship office product line for customers and is designed to work with both touch and a mouse, and works seamlessly in the cloud, giving the user an unmatched on- and offline experience.
A cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities, the Office 365 Home Premium includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling.
Microsoft Windows 8.1 brings significant advantages to those who are upgrading existing PCs or purchasing new ones and comes with a new look. The operating system offers improvements in performance and existing capabilities.
To address challenges of weak technology reporting in the African media which is unstructured and shallow, and to bridge journalists’ reporting skills gap, Microsoft aims to provide local journalists with the tools they require to enable them report confidently on ICT issues, use technology properly in their day-to-day activities and create an affinity to the Microsoft brand and its solutions and services.
More than 20 journalists drawn from major media houses in Nigeria participated in the capacity building workshop.
Explaining motivation for the programme, Yemi Orimolade, PR Lead for Microsoft Anglophone West Africa said, “As a technology enabler, we believe IT capacity building contributes significantly to economic empowerment, growth and development, and will offer the appropriate skills to the media to use technology in innovative ways”.
Professor Lai Oso, Dean School of Communications at the Lagos State University , Lagos gave a keynote address on Bridging the gap between Technology & News Reporting.
According to him, audiences have moved away from being consumers of news to news producers as a result of latest trends in the technological landscape. Journalism in turn has moved away from the way it used to be and there is hardly any traditional media without an online version.
“Migration from the offline environment to the online has made it important to always update stories. New technologies create challenges and opportunities and yesterday’s skills and technology are fast becoming obsolete,” he said.
The workshop course content included Big data, One note, Antipiracy, Social media, Understanding Cloud Computing and Windows 8 & Office 365 experience.
The session on big data was facilitated by the duo of Marcus Stephens and Craig Corte of Kagiso Media. Marcus spoke on how data can be applied from a technological perspective for depth, frequency and reach.
“Though technology may change the way we communicate, it will not change the essence of communication,” Stephens submitted.
The session on Microsoft One Note was taken by Azubuike Nwajagu, IT Manager, Microsoft West East and Central Africa & Indian Ocean Islands. He said “Microsoft One Note is an effective tool for recording, collating and sharing notes. OneNote is particularly advantageous to journalists as it enables audio and video recording which is useful for recording interviews. The tool also enables interview transcription and allows for sharing of notes via email’.
The antipiracy session taken by Temofe Ugbona, Antipiracy Conversion manager, Microsoft Nigeria was a very interactive one, where he stressed that piracy is a problem of the whole world, not just Nigeria and is projected to be worth $7.4b by 2014.”
“Social media has become increasingly popular with the growth of social networking as a channel of communication. The use of blog posts and social networking sites have become major media for sharing information, videos and pictures. There are over two million Nigerians on Facebook and YouTube has been rated the second largest search engine in the world,” said Kendra Nnachi who facilitated the session on social media.
Yomi Alarape anchored the session on cloud computing, where he gave insights on datacenter evolution through the traditional, virtualization, private cloud and public could, while the Windows 8.1 and Office 365 experience session facilitated by Bamikole Ajayi, where participants were able to touch, feel, play and have hands-on experience with devices operating on the Windows 8.1 platform.
Giving his thoughts on the training, Abiodun Ogunjobi, Head Marketing, Ha-Shem Network Services Limited said, “We are excited to partner with Microsoft on this maiden edition of the journalist capacity building training project for the Nigerian media. The benefits of IT education cannot be overemphasized and we feel this is a good way to positively impact their reporting to be at par with the advanced world journalism.”
Participating journalists commended the continuous efforts of Microsoft and Ha-Shem Network Services Limited at encouraging technology penetration as well as personal growth of their partners.
Adeyemi Adepetun of The Guardian Newspaper speaking on behalf of the journalists said, “We thank Microsoft for this opportunity. It has been a very enlightening experience. We now have better understanding of Microsoft software packages and the opportunities that exist in online and social media as effective communication channels. IT skills are certainly a prerequisite for future achievement”.
Participants came from various media houses such as Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, The Punch Newspapers, The Guardian Newspaper, ThisDay Newspaper, Champion Newspapers, BusinessDay Newspaper, National Mirror, The Sun and Vanguard Newspapers amongst others.
Certificates of participation were given to all the journalists at the end of the one-day workshop.
A new global survey from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) reveals that 52% of marketing leaders believe generic top-level domains (gTLDs – the three characters or more that come after the dot in a URL) have strong potential for enhancing brand presence online; however, a knowledge gap is preventing many brands from taking advantage of the opportunities that a gTLD can bring.
The research surveyed over 2,000 marketing leaders across eight countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, U.K., and U.S.) with the purpose of creating a picture of the evolving digital marketing landscape and understanding the levels of awareness around gTLDs.
It comes as ICANN prepares to open the next application window for new gTLDs in April 2026 the New gTLD Program: Next Round – the first opportunity in more than a decade for organizations to apply to operate their own gTLD.
Top-level domains are the letters found at the end of an Internet address (with gTLDs including .charity, .menu, .paris and .ceo). Brands can apply to run their own gTLD as a way to indicate the purpose of their organization or to clearly mark a website as being related to their brand.
The research shows that increasing brand awareness and visibility is the top priority for marketing leaders (54%) and that over half believe that gTLDs have strong potential for enhancing brand presence online.
However, the research also shows that almost a third (32%) of marketing leaders surveyed are unfamiliar with gTLDs, which suggests that operating a new gTLD may be a strategic opportunity that many organizations are currently overlooking.
Key findings from the research include:
- After defining a gTLD, 92% of marketing leaders responded that they could see the potential benefits to gTLDs, with enhanced brand differentiation (46%), improved customer trust (45%), better control over online presence (44%), and improved SEO (44%) topping the list.
- 19% of marketing leaders work for organizations that have previously applied for a gTLD.
- Cost concerns (31%), knowledge gaps (27%), and insufficient resources (24%) were identified as the main barriers to application.
- The research revealed notable regional variations, with Nigerian (74%) and Indian (61%) marketing leaders showing the strongest belief in gTLDs’ potential for branding and online presence. In contrast, marketers in China expressed more mixed views, with 50% seeing strong potential but 49% considering gTLDs an unnecessary investment with unclear Return On Investment.
The findings come at a time when marketing leaders are facing significant challenges in standing out from competitors (53%), attracting and engaging the right audience (52%), and keeping pace with digital trends (47%).
A new gTLD can be an innovative tool for commerce and communication. They allow businesses in specific countries, sectors, or niche markets to create an exclusive, descriptive, and memorable label on the Internet.
An entity operating a gTLD can provide its users and customers with an extra measure of confidence in its security and legitimacy online. This can be valuable in today’s environment, where users often don’t know whether they can trust the source on the Internet.
Theresa Swinehart, SVP, Global Domains & Strategy said: “The New gTLD Program: Next Round presents an opportunity for businesses, communities, governments, and others to apply to operate their own secure space online, tailored to fit their organization, community, culture, language, and customer interests.
Now is also the moment for brands to consider applying for a gTLD, and this research tells us there is still a lack of awareness. ICANN can help provide information and raise awareness of the Next Round and the opportunity it presents for global communities, organizations, and businesses, including brands.”
To help address the knowledge gap, ICANN is developing resources to help organizations understand the application process and potential opportunities for gTLDs ahead of the 2026 application window. ICANN also offers the Applicant Support Program (ASP), which provides financial and non-financial assistance to eligible applicants.
Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) experts at the 10th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2025 held recently, talked about supply chain attacks and reported that by the end of 2024 a total of 14,000 malicious packages were found in open-source projects, a 48% increase compared to the end of 2023. 42 million versions of open-source packages have been examined by Kaspersky throughout 2024 in search for vulnerabilities.
Open-source is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Popular open-source packages include GoMod, Maven, NuGet, npm, PyPI, and others.
These are tools that power countless applications and help developers easily find, install, and manage pre-built code libraries, making it simpler to build software by reusing code others have written. Attackers take advantage of the popularity of these and other packages.
In March 2025, the Lazarus Group was reported to have deployed several malicious npm packages, which were downloaded multiple times before removal. These packages contained malware to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallet data, and deploy backdoors, targeting developers’ systems across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The attack leveraged GitHub repositories for added legitimacy, highlighting the group’s sophisticated supply chain tactics. Kaspersky’s GReAT also found other npm packages related to this attack. Malicious npm packages could have been integrated into web development, cryptocurrency platforms, and enterprise software, risking widespread data theft and financial losses.
In 2024, a sophisticated backdoor was discovered in XZ Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, a widely used compression library in Linux distributions. Inserted by a trusted contributor, the malicious code targeted SSH servers, enabling remote command execution and threatening countless systems globally.
Detected before widespread exploitation due to performance anomalies, the incident highlighted the dangers of supply chain attacks. XZ Utils is integral to operating systems, cloud servers, and IoT devices, making its compromise a threat to critical infrastructure and enterprise networks.
In 2024, Kaspersky’s GReAT discovered that attackers uploaded malicious Python packages like chatgpt-python and chatgpt-wrapper to PyPI, mimicking legitimate tools for interacting with ChatGPT APIs.
These packages, designed to steal credentials and deploy backdoors, capitalised on the popularity of AI development to trick developers into downloading them. These packages could have been used in AI development, chatbot integrations, and data analytics platforms, endangering sensitive AI workflows and user data.
“Open-source software is the backbone of many modern solutions, but its openness is being weaponised. The 50% rise in malicious packages by the end of 2024 shows attackers are actively embedding sophisticated backdoors and data stealers in popular packages, which millions rely on.
“Without rigorous vetting and real-time monitoring, a single compromised package can trigger a global breach. Organisations need to secure the supply chain before the next XZ Utils-level attack succeeds,” comments Dmitry Galov, Head of Research Center for Russia and CIS at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
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