E-Business
Microsoft to Deliver Cloud Services from Datacentres in Africa
Last Night, Microsoft revealed plans to deliver the complete, intelligent Microsoft Cloud for the first time from datacentres located in Africa.
This new investment is a major milestone in the company’s mission to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more, and a recognition of the enormous opportunity for digital transformation in Africa.
Expanding on existing investments, Microsoft will deliver cloud services, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics 365, from datacentres located in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa with initial availability anticipated in 2018.
The new cloud regions will offer enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with data residency to help enable the tremendous opportunity for economic growth, and increase access to cloud and internet services for organisations and people across the African continent.
“We’re excited by the growing demand for cloud services in Africa and their ability to be a catalyst for new economic opportunities,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud and Enterprise Group, Microsoft Corp. “With cloud services ranging from intelligent collaboration to predictive analytics, the Microsoft Cloud delivered from Africa will enable developers to build new and innovative apps, customers to transform their businesses, and governments to better serve the needs of their citizens.”
Expanding Access& Opportunity: Currently many companies in Africa rely on cloud services delivered from outside of the continent. Microsoft’s new investment will provide highly available, scalable, and secure cloud services across Africa with the option of data residency in South Africa. With the introduction of these new cloud regions, Microsoft has now announced 40 regions around the world – more than any major cloud provider.
The combination of Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure with the new regions in Africa will connect businesses with opportunity across the globe, help accelerate new investments, and improve access to cloud and internet services for people and organisations from Cairo to Cape Town.
“We greatly value Microsoft’s commitment to invest in cloud services delivered from Africa. Standard Bank already relies on cloud technology to provide our customers with a seamless experience,” sayid Brenda Niehaus, group CIO at Standard Bank. “To achieve success as a business, we need to keep pace with market developments as well as customer needs, and Office 365 empowers us to make a culture shift towards becoming a more dynamic organisation, whilst Azure enables us to deliver our apps and services to our customers in Africa. We’re looking forward to achieving even more with the cloud services available here on the continent.”
Investing in African Innovation: This announcement expands on ongoing investments in Africa, where organizations are using currently available cloud and mobile services as a platform for innovation in health care, agriculture, education, and entrepreneurship. Microsoft has been working to support local start-ups and NGOs, unleashing innovation that has the potential to solve some of the biggest problems facing humanity, such as the scarcity of water and food, and economic and environmental sustainability. One start-up, M-KOPA Solar, provides affordable pay-as-you-go solar energy to over 500,000 homes using mobile and cloud technology. AGIN has built an app connecting 140,000 smallholder farmers to key services, enabling them to share data and facilitating $1.3 million per month in finance, insurance and other services.
Across Africa, Microsoft has brought 728,000 small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) online to help them transform and modernise their businesses, and over 500,000 are now utilising Microsoft cloud services, with 17,000 using the 4Afrika hub to promote andgrow their businesses. The Microsoft Cloud is also helping Africans build job skills, with 775,000 trained on subjects ranging from digital literacy to software development. We anticipate the Microsoft Cloud from Africa will fuel extensive new opportunities for our 17,000 regional partners and customers alike.
“This development broadens the options available to us in our modernisation journey of Government ICT infrastructure and services. It allows us to take advantage of new opportunities to develop innovative government solutions at manageable costs, as well as drive overall improvements in operations management, while improving transparency and accountability,” said Dr.Setumo Mohapi, CEO at SITA.
The Microsoft Trusted Cloud: Microsoft has deep expertise protecting data, championing privacy, and empowering customers around the globe to meet extensive security and privacy requirements. With Microsoft’s Trusted Cloud principles of security, privacy, compliance, transparency, and the broadest set of compliance certifications and attestations in the industry, Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure supports over a billion customers and 20 million businesses around the globe.
“By establishing hyper scale cloud datacentre capacity in South Africa, Microsoft is directly addressing customers’ concerns, and demonstrating commitment to the delivery of cloud services within the country and the region as a whole,” says Jon Tullett, senior research manager, IDC MEA.
“The presence of local facilities will be greatly encouraging to South African customers, particularly those in regulated industries such as financial services and the public sector where data sovereignty concerns are paramount. This is a strongly positive development for the cloud industry in Africa, and particularly Microsoft’s ecosystem of partners, ISVs and customers.”
The University of Nigeria (UNN) is set to partner with The Roxettes Group to establish a research and innovation centre focused on artificial intelligence (AI), smart and green mobility, and digital technologies, in a move aimed at strengthening research, entrepreneurship and technology-driven industrial development.
Chairman of The Roxettes Group, Arc. Dr. Kaycee Orji-Kelechi, announced the proposed partnership while delivering his acceptance speech after receiving an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration (Honoris Causa) during the university’s convocation ceremony.
The proposed facility, to be known as the Dr. Kaycee Orji Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Smart/Green Mobility and Digital Innovation, is expected to provide a platform for research, innovation and collaboration between academia and industry, with a focus on developing commercially viable solutions to local and continental challenges.
Orji-Kelechi said the initiative was conceived as a long-term investment in human capital and technological advancement rather than simply another physical infrastructure project.
He said the vision was to position the University of Nigeria among Africa’s leading institutions in artificial intelligence, smart mobility and digital innovation through research, entrepreneurship and technology development.
According to him, the centre will house five specialised laboratories covering artificial intelligence and machine learning, smart and green mobility, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), digital finance and financial technology, as well as cloud computing and advanced data centre technologies.
He also announced plans for the proposed Kaycee Orji Founders Innovation Challenge, an annual programme intended to identify, mentor and support innovative ideas from students, researchers and academic staff with the potential to become scalable businesses.
“Every student of this University should know that a great idea conceived in a classroom should have a pathway to becoming a patent, a startup, a global enterprise, and a solution that transforms society,” he said.
Orji-Kelechi disclosed that preliminary conceptual work on the project had commenced, with architectural and engineering designs being prepared by K.KH Contractors Ltd., a subsidiary of The Roxettes Group.
He added that discussions with the university would begin on identifying a suitable site for the project, while a comprehensive proposal containing architectural drawings, engineering designs and an implementation framework would be submitted after completion of the design phase.
Reflecting on his career, Orji-Kelechi said Africa must move beyond consuming innovation to creating it through investment in manufacturing, technology and entrepreneurship.
“We have pursued one simple vision: that Nigeria and Africa must move from consumption to production; from importing innovation to creating it; and from waiting for opportunities to building them,” he said.
He urged graduating students to see their education as a foundation for solving societal challenges through innovation, leadership and enterprise, adding that he remained committed to promoting industrial development, youth empowerment and sustainable economic growth.
The proposed collaboration forms part of broader efforts to strengthen university-industry partnerships, which are increasingly seen as critical to improving research commercialisation, innovation capacity and technology-led economic development in Nigeria.
National Population Commission (NPC) has announced commencement of full digital registration of births and deaths through the VitalReg platform, which became operational nationwide on July 1, 2026.
Chidi Ezeoke, federal commissioner representing Anambra, disclosed this in Awka during a press conference to announce commencement of full digital birth and death registration under the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (E-CRVS) system and the marking of World Population Day commemorated every July 11.
He revealed that a total of 131 registration centres had been opened in the 21 local government headquarters and several communities in the state, adding that more centres would be opened later.
Ezeoke described the initiative as a major milestone in Nigeria’s Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system, to ensure every birth and death in the country was captured through a digitally enabled registration platform.
“It builds on the launch of the E-CRVS system and the inauguration of the National Coordination Committee on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics by President Bola Tinubu on Nov. 8, 2023.
“A total of 4,011 functional registration centres has been established across the 774 LGAs of the federation and the commission iswas working to expand the number to about 8,000.
“In Anambra, 131 registration centres have been opened in the 21 local government headquarters and several communities. More centres had been proposed for the state,” he said.
According to the Commissioner, the VitalReg platform would provide faster registration services, 24-hour online access, digital certificate issuance where applicable, reduced paperwork and waiting time, improved data validation and a more secure national CRVS database.
While noting that the platform would serve as a foundational database to support other national data systems and strengthen interoperability across Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem, Ezeoke urged Nigerians and other stakeholders to support the initiative by ensuring prompt registration of all births and deaths.
Speaking on the 2026 World Population Day themed, “Realising the Hopes and Aspirations of Young People – Today and for the Future”, the Commissioner called for greater investment in education, healthcare, skills development, decent employment opportunities and youth participation in governance for sustainable national development.
Earlier, Mr Obiakonwa Okagwu, state director, NPC, said the occasion served as a reminder of great opportunities provided to harness young people’s capabilities, which he said would shape the future of the country when adequately harnessed.
He called on residents to take registration of births and deaths as national responsibility, just as he urged the media to take the message on civil registration to all parts of the State.
E-Business
Report Says Cybercriminals Deploy Malware to Hijack Crypto Wallets, Monitor Browsers Telegram
Cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky have uncovered a sophisticated malware framework, dubbed OkoBot, that is targeting cryptocurrency users by stealing wallet recovery phrases, browser credentials and other sensitive information through a multi-stage attack campaign spanning more than 25 countries.
The researchers said the malware, active since April 2025, employs more than 20 malicious payloads and has evolved into an advanced cybercrime platform focused on compromising digital asset holders. According to Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), the campaign remains active and has already affected hundreds of users worldwide.
Kaspersky disclosed that one of the framework’s most dangerous components, known as SeedHunter, injects malicious code into legitimate cryptocurrency wallet applications, including Ledger Wallet, Ledger Live and Trezor Suite, before displaying fake recovery phrase prompts designed to trick victims into surrendering their seed phrases.
The security firm explained that once attackers obtain a victim’s recovery phrase, they gain complete control over the cryptocurrency wallet, enabling them to transfer digital assets with virtually no chance of recovery.
Commenting on the discovery, Dmitry Galov, security researcher at Kaspersky’s GReAT, said.
“This campaign has been running for more than a year and remains active. OkoBot is not just a single piece of malware but an extensible framework built primarily to compromise cryptocurrency users.”
Galov added that the malware is continuously maintained and enhanced, underscoring the attackers’ long-term focus on financial theft.
According to Kaspersky, victims are typically infected through ClickFix phishing attacks or malicious GitHub repositories masquerading as legitimate software downloads. In one instance, a fake Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio repository secretly installed a trojanized version of the Audacity audio editor embedded with malicious code.
Following the initial compromise, the attackers deploy a PowerShell downloader called TookPS,which establishes an encrypted SSH connection to attacker-controlled infrastructure.
The malware then harvests browser cookies, wallet files, stored credentials and system information before downloading additional malicious modules.
Among the additional payloads is OkoSpyware which monitors more than 100 applications, which includes cryptocurrency wallets and password managers—records user activity and captures keystrokes and video of application windows. Another module silently installs malicious browser extensions capable of stealing financial information and authentication tokens.
However, Kaspersky’s telemetry indicates that the largest concentrations of victims have been recorded in Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Mexico and Türkiye, although the malware campaign has spread to users across more than 25 countries.
The cybersecurity firm advised cryptocurrency users never to enter wallet recovery phrases into prompts displayed by desktop applications or websites unless they have independently verified their authenticity.
Furthermore,It also urged users to download wallet software exclusively from official sources, enable multi-layered endpoint protection, and remain cautious of software offered through unofficial repositories or phishing websites.
Kaspersky noted that while hardware wallets themselves remain secure, attackers are increasingly exploiting the software that accompanies them, making user awareness a critical line of defence against evolving cryptocurrency-focused cyber threats.
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