E-Business
NCC to Offer Financial Incentives to Infrastructure Providers
Succour is at hand for infrastructure providers in the Nigerian Communication space as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is to give financial incentives to infrastructure providers, Nigeria Communications Week can report.
The financial incentives according to the regulator, is to enable service delivery at affordable prices for the end-user, where it may not be economically viable to do so to enable them operate profitably.
Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman of the NCC made this known as this year’s West African Information & Communications Technology Congress (WAFICT) organised by IT & Telecoms Digest Magazine, tagged ‘Bridging West Africa’s Digital Divide through Broadband’.
“To enable service delivery at affordable prices for the end-user, where it may not be economically viable to do so, the commission will offer financial incentives to the infrastructure providers to enable them operate reasonably profitably.”
“The government through the commission will facilitate agreements and engage in dispute resolution among the various stakeholders,” the EVC added.
Juwah in a key note presentation at the event reeled out strategies already being implemented by the Commission to boost broadband penetration in Nigeria and this include the adoption of the ‘Open Access Model’ for broadband deployment.
This model, according to the EVC, provides a framework for sophisticated infrastructure sharing.
“This structure will ensure vibrancy in the market and prevent dominance as no company will be allowed to play in more than two of the service layers and the equity participation in bidding consortiums for the licenses will be controlled,” he said.
He said the commission would issue licenses in the passive and active layers while price cap would be implemented in these layers using cost based pricing. Juwah added that multiple licenses would also be issued in the retail layer with pricing to end users determined by market forces.
For broadband implementation, Juwah said the Commission has already concluded preliminary studies that would enable cost effective deployment. In this process, we have developed a model for the deployment and have engaged reputable internationally acclaimed consultants to drive strategy and design the process for achieving our goals” he said.
E-Business
CrediCorp Partners FintechNGR to Drive Consumer Credit Initiative
Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CrediCorp), has partnered Fintech Association of Nigeria (FinTechNGR) to drive consumer credit scheme initiative through a robust payment platform that would be provided by members of FinTechNGR.
Speaking at a Social Meet in Lagos, organised by FinTechNGR, with the theme: “Augmenting the Future, AI, Credit and Transformation of Nigerian Finance,” the Chairman, CrediCorp Board of Directors, Aderemi Abdul-Bojela, said members of FinTechNGR would have specific roles to play in the partnership, in the areas of providing robust platform for money transfer, technology evaluation, among others.
“Today, CrediCorp is engaging with members of FinTechNGR in a social interactive gathering to discuss collaboration and support for the growth of Consumer Credit Corporation in Nigeria. We want to interact to understand how technology will drive the crediCorp initiative in Nigeria and also to understand the role that members of FinTechNGR will play in all of these initiatives around CrediCorp,” Abdul-Bojela said.
Describing the partnership as a welcome development that will enhance savings culture among Nigerians, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of FinTechNGR, Dr. Babatunde Obrimah, said: “FinTechNGR is an enabler of technology advancement in Nigeria. We bring the players together to drive technology innovation.
“Our role in the FinTechNGR-CrediCorp partnership is to ensure that our members support the growth of consumer credit in Nigeria, by providing the relevant payment platforms for all financial transactions among the banks who are the lenders, the customers who are the burrowers and the CrediCorp who is the guarantor.”
Speaking about the benefits for Nigerians, Obrimah said the Consumer Credit Corporation in Nigeria would enhance the country’s credit culture and enable Nigerians to save and plan well with their savings. “The initiative will address inflation, help in liquidity flow, build trust in customers’ borrowing, boost credit culture and enhance the culture of savings among Nigerians,” Obrimah said.
Addressing the issue of risk and consumer trust, Abdul-Bojela said the CrediCorp has put measures in place to ensure that the banks that would be involved in lending, would be protected and guaranteed of the repayment of the loans within the CrediCorp ecosystem.
He said there would be an independent management that would ensure that the right technology is put in place to recover all monies.
E-Business
NITDA to Integrate of Digital Literacy into School Curriculum
Kashifu Abdullahi, director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), announced plans to integrate digital literacy into Nigeria’s education system, to achieve a 70% literacy rate by 2027 and 95% by 2030.
The NITDA’s DG made the announcement on Wednesday in Abuja during a media parley.
He stated that in order to include digital literacy in the curriculum at all educational levels, from kindergarten to university, the Agency was collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education.
Abdullahi, said that this program would equip Nigerians with the digital know-how and abilities they need to succeed in the digital economy.
He emphasized that NITDA would also launch the “Digital Literacy for All Initiative” to educate Nigerians outside the formal education system and provide access to quality digital content.
Nigeria would train over two million young people in in-demand IT skills in order to become significant global outsourcing hub
NITDA is also collaborating with the Defence Headquarters and security agencies to develop digital solutions to address security concerns, including the use of drones, artificial intelligence, and other digital resources to combat banditry, abduction, and terrorism, he said.
According to him, the agency’s draft SRAP 2.0 plan aims to establish Nigeria as a digitally empowered nation, with a focus on innovation, national prosperity, and inclusivity.
The director general of NITDA added that, if successfully implemented, this strategy could propel Nigeria into a new phase of digital empowerment and leadership in the global digital economy.
E-Business
Experts Highlight Trusted Relationships as Key Vector
In 2023, more than 1/5 of cyberattacks persisted for over a month, the annual Kaspersky Incident Response 2023 report has revealed, with trusted relationships emerging as one of the main attack vectors in these prolonged cases.
The report draws on the results of Kaspersky’s cyberattack investigations throughout the year, gathered when supporting organisations sought incident response assistance or when hosting expert events for their internal incident response teams.
Primary reasons of organisations approaching Kaspersky Incident Response team with service requests were encrypted files (32.8% of requests), suspicious activities (31%), data leakage (20%), and also included non-authorised accesses (3%), service unavailability (3%) and money theft (1.6%).
Among initial attack vectors of the investigated incidents were exploiting public facing application (42.4%), compromised accounts and BruteForce attacks (28.8% in total), trusted relationships (6.78%), phishing (5%), insider’s activity (3.4%).
Kaspersky Incident Response 2023 report indicates that long-lasting cyberattacks that persist for more than a month constituted 21.85% of the total, increasing from 2022 by 5.55%.
One notable trend observed in these attacks was the exploitation of trusted relationships as a primary vector. Compromises leveraging trusted relationships have occurred previously, but in 2023 their frequency increased.
As this method of attack enables threat actors to infiltrate multiple victims through a single compromised organisation, investigative teams face several additional challenges. Firstly, initially targeted organisations don’t always recognise the importance of thorough investigations and may be reluctant to cooperate.
Secondly, attacks initiated through trusted relationships often require more time to progress from the initial intrusion to the final incursion phase. Therefore 50% of these attacks lasted more than a month. A similar proportion of attacks exceeding one month were exclusively registered within the insider and phishing vectors.
“Our latest findings underscore the critical role of trust in cyberattacks. In 2023 and for the first time in recent years, attacks through trusted relationships were among the three most used vectors. Half of these incidents were discovered only after a data leak had been found.
“By exploiting trusted relationships, threat actors can prolong attacks and infiltrate networks for extended periods, posing significant risks to organisations. It’s imperative for businesses to remain vigilant and prioritise security measures to safeguard against such sophisticated tactics,” comments Konstantin Sapronov, Head of Global Emergency Response Team at Kaspersky.
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