E-Business
Safer Internet Day Highlights Africa’s Online Challenge
Yesterday the world marked Safer Internet Day, a reminder that emerging online issues like cyber bullying and harmful online experiences continue to pose a threat to users, especially, the youth.
Mobile telecommunications services provider Uswitch claims over half of 12 -15 year-olds have had some form of harmful online experience, one in eight young people have been bullied through social media, and 53% of 11-16 year-olds have seen explicit material online.
Uswitch has also found that six in ten parents are aware of the various technical tools and parental controls available, but only a third actually use them.
The company has emphasised the role of parental controls, which it explains is a set of measures and limits you can apply to your child’s internet devices and accounts to prevent access to upsetting or inappropriate content online.
Uswitch identifies several types of parental controls, including websites, smartphones, online gaming and streaming, which can be used to manage search engines, prevent money being spent online, keep track of your child’s location, to teach cyber safety habits and etiquette, and implement screen time limits.
Max Beckett, broadband expert at Uswitch.com says: “With the online world becoming increasingly intertwined with our children’s lives, parental controls should be a tool that all caregivers know how to use. Sadly, with only one in three parents currently using the controls available to them, there needs to be a better understanding on how to use them.
“It’s very easy to stumble upon harmful content on the web, so it’s natural that we would want to protect our children from that. However, parental controls are useful for much more. They give us the ability to teach our children how to use the internet wisely, and what is trustworthy or not — which are critical life skills in this day and age.
“While it’s frustrating that different devices and platforms all have different sets of parental controls, setting them up on as many devices as you can is the best way to plug all the gaps. It will help you ensure that your child can enjoy everything they want from the internet with minimal risks to their safety.”
Africa under attack
The message to do as much as possible to make the internet safer is amplified by market research from cybersecurity specialists like Check Point.
According to the Check Point Software 2022 Security Report, Africa experienced the highest volume of cyber attacks in the world last year. The company stressed that organisations and consumers must become more aware of the threats they face in the digital landscape.
During the past six months, Check Point Research has seen an increase in cyber attacks targeting the government, insurance, and finance sectors in South Africa.
The company adds that on average, there have been more than 1 450 attacks per week in the country.
“This trend will likely continue over the coming months as more threats start coming from cloud and mobile platforms. Threat actors will not limit their focus to South Africa and will potentially target countries across the continent,” says Check Point.
It points to the impact of cloud adoption in Africa and the emergence of supply chain attacks, as well as of remote workers and increasing concern over malware.
Check Point anticipates that these supply chain attacks will continue through 2023 with a significant amount of risk coming from the open source community.
“Typically, suppliers relying on these open source systems have not properly vetted them or have been lax in managing these environments, resulting in cybersecurity weak points emerging,” Check Point continues.
Globally, ransomware was the number one threat in 2022. Uncertainty across the various African economies around service delivery and critical infrastructure will likely see more countries face cyber attacks targeting the government.
According to Check Point, the number of cyber threats reported to the Kenyan National Cyber Crime Centre (NCC) in the first quarter of the 2022/23 year rose by almost 200%.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) said the number of cyber attacks detected in the country in the three months ending September 2022 stood at 278 million. This is almost three times the number of threats reported in previous quarter.
The country has implemented a number of initiatives to strengthen its cybersecurity infrastructure, including the establishment of the National Cyber Security Authority and the National Computer Incident Response Team (National KE-CIRT/CC).
Their mandate is to coordinate response and manage cybersecurity incidents nationally and to collaborate with relevant actors locally, regionally, and internationally.
“There is simply no respite from ransomware and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. This puts users under increasing pressure to keep up to date with the latest trends in the threat landscape. We know that these criminals are continually evolving in how they develop and perpetrate attacks.
“With smaller, more agile malicious groups looking to exploit any potential weak points in company and end user defences, people cannot afford to not take cybersecurity seriously,” says Pankaj Bhula, Regional Director for Africa at Check Point.
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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