Telecom
Sophos Unveils 4 New Open Artificial Intelligence Developments
Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, has announced four new open Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments to help broaden and sharpen the industry’s defenses against cyberattacks, including datasets, tools and methodologies designed to advance industry collaboration and cumulative innovation.
This move accelerates a key Sophos objective to open its data science breakthroughs and make the use of AI in cybersecurity more transparent, all with the aim of better protecting organizations against all forms of cybercrime.
While it is common practice to share AI methodologies and findings in other industries, cybersecurity has lagged in this effort, creating a noisy understanding of how AI truly provides protection against cyberthreats.
Sophos and its team of SophosAI data scientists are catalyzing this change toward openness, so that IT managers, security analysts, CFOs, CEOs, and others making security buying or management decisions, can discuss and assess AI benefits from a level and well-informed playing field.
Joe Levy, chief technology officer, Sophos, said “With SophosAI’s new initiative to open its research, we can help influence how AI is positioned and discussed in cybersecurity moving forward.
“Today’s cacophony of opaque or guarded claims about the capabilities or efficacy of AI in solutions makes it difficult to impossible for buyers to understand or validate these claims.
“This leads to buyer skepticism, creating headwinds to future progress at the very moment we’re starting to see great breakthroughs.
“Correcting this through external mechanisms like standards or regulation won’t happen quickly enough. Instead, it requires a grassroots effort and self-policing within our community to produce a set of practices and language that will advance the industry in a disruptive, open and transparent manner.”
It is difficult to overstate the criticality of this shift given the immense potential of how AI can benefit cybersecurity. Sophos evidence shows that defenders are increasingly facing human adversaries who are constantly upping their game, launching highly contextualized Business Email Compromise (BEC) forgery campaigns or relentlessly developing new ransomware attacks.
Scalable and effective defenses against these and most other types of cyberattacks require assistance from AI. Openness and peer review among those applying AI to address these security threats stimulate innovation and discoveries, driving the entire industry forward.
Sophos is providing datasets, tools and methodologies in four important areas:
SOREL-20M Dataset for Accelerating Malware Detection Research
SOREL-20M, a joint project between SophosAI and ReversingLabs, is a production-scale dataset containing metadata, labels and features for 20 million Windows Portable Executable files (PE).
It includes 10 million disarmed malware samples available for download for the purpose of research on feature extraction to accelerate industry-wide improvements in security.
This dataset is the first production scale malware research dataset available to the general public, with a curated and labelled set of samples and security-relevant metadata.
AI-powered Impersonation Protection Method
SophosAI’s Impersonation Protection is designed to protect against email spearphishing attacks, where influential people are impersonated to trick recipients into taking some harmful action for the benefit of the attacker.
This new protection compares the display name of inbound emails against high level executive titles – those most likely to be spoofed in a spearphishing attack, such as a CEO, CFO or president – that are unique to specific organizations and flags these messages when they appear suspicious.
Sophos has trained the AI working behind the scenes on a large sample set of millions of known attack emails. SophosAI has opened up this innovative new protection method, which it has also discussed publicly at Defcon 28 and in an Arxiv paper.
Digital Epidemiology to Determine Undetected Malware
SophosAI has also built a set of epidemiology-inspired statistical models for estimating the prevalence of malware infections in total, which enables Sophos to estimate – and in turn enabling a better chance to find – the needles in a PE file haystack.
SophosAI has pioneered and made publicly available this method that helps to determine malicious “dark matter,” malware that might be missed or wrongly classified, and “future malware” that is in development by attackers.
The model is designed to be extensible to other classes of files and information system artifacts and is also discussed in the Sophos 2021 Threat Report.
YaraML Automatic Signature Generation Tools
Signature generation for the detection of malware families is a laborious, manual process. Over the years, researchers have proposed a variety of automatic signature generation methods, most of which have not found adoption because they underperform manual methods.
SophosAI has developed a new method for automatic signature generation, called YaraML, that’s significantly different from previous options by taking an AI based approach to the problem. SophosAI directly “compiles” full-fledged, industrial strength machine learning models, the kinds used in commercial security products, into signature languages, essentially allowing AI to “write” the signatures.
This proves to be far more effective than previous approaches and represents a breakthrough for the security community. SophosAI has open-sourced YaraML.
These four advancements are the latest from SophosAI, which works creatively like a start-up incubator, but with the intellectual resources of a near billion-dollar global company, including SophosLabs, Sophos Managed Threat Response and hundreds of thousands of customers.
Another advantage is that SophosAI can add new technology directly into shipping products. This model allows Sophos to react quickly to market needs, predict where the industry must head and advance openness for greater cybersecurity industry collaboration and innovation, all of which is essential when developing defenses against fast-moving adversaries.
MTN Nigeria, in collaboration with ONErpm and Ultima Studios, has announced Ayodeji Benson, popularly known as Ayo Benzi, as the winner of the maiden edition of the Next Afrobeats Star reality show.
L-R: Onyinye Ikenna-Emeka, Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria; Ayodeji Benson, Winner, Next Afrobeats Star Reality Show (Season 1) and Emamoke Ogoro, General Manager, Brand and Communication, MTN Nigeria, at the grand finale of the Next Afrobeats Star Reality Show (Season 1), held at the Ultima Studios, Lekki, Lagos on Saturday, December 13, 2025.
The grand finale, held on Sunday night at Ultima Studios in Lekki, Lagos, marked the climax of a nationwide talent search that began in September with over 15,000 aspiring musicians.
After weeks of auditions, mentorship, and rigorous training, five finalists – Ayo Benzi, Dave Cash, Kaeko, Somto O’Laker, and Lucky Yay – battled for the top prize in a high-energy showcase of performance and artistry.
At the end of the electrifying contest, Ayo Benzi emerged victorious, securing a ₦150 million music deal. Dave Cash was named first runner-up with ₦100 million, while Kaeko, Somto O’Laker, and Lucky Yay received ₦75 million, ₦50 million, and ₦25 million respectively.
Throughout the season, contestants were mentored by leading Afrobeats producers Sarz, Puffy Tee, P Prime, and Andre Vibez. Benzi, who was part of Puffy Tee’s team, credited the mentorship programme for sharpening his craft and stage presence.
Speaking at the event, Onyinye Ikenna-Emeka, Chief Marketing Officer of MTN Nigeria, said the initiative reflects the company’s commitment to youth empowerment and cultural expression.
“The Next Afrobeats Star platform is about creating real opportunities for young Nigerians and giving their talent the structure, visibility, and support it deserves.
“Afrobeats continues to place Nigeria on the global cultural map, and MTN is proud to be enabling the next generation of artists who will take this sound even further,” she said.
She added that the finale was not just a competition but a celebration of growth and readiness for the global stage.
In his acceptance speech, Ayo Benzi described the victory as a defining moment in his career.
“A big thank you to MTN. From the audition days, the treatment MTN has given us has been amazing. God bless the brand,” he said.
The finale also featured guest performances by Afrobeats stars Iyanya and Bella Shmurda, adding glamour to the night and reinforcing the show’s connection to the wider music ecosystem.
With the successful conclusion of the season, MTN Nigeria and its partners reaffirmed their role in championing youth ambition, supporting creative industries, and shaping the future of Nigerian music through platforms that turn potential into opportunity.
T2, formerly known as 9mobile, is under investigation by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Benue State for an undisclosed incident disrupting USSD, SMS, voice, and data services across nine local government areas.
T2
The affected areas include Ado, Agatu, Gwer East, Gwer West, Konshisha, Obi, Ohimini, Okpokwu, and Otukpo, as detailed in an advisory on the NCC Major Outages Portal, which tracks significant disruptions reported by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Neither T2 nor its public relations firm, Chain Reactions, has responded to inquiries on the outage’s cause or restoration efforts as of this report.
The NCC’s continued reference to the operator as 9mobile, months after its public rebranding to T2 in August 2025, has sparked questions about whether the name change was formally notified to the regulator.
This probe aligns with NCC mandates requiring operators to disclose major outages, their impacts, and timelines for fixes, with compensation obligatory for disruptions exceeding 24 hours under the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.
Industry watchers note that such incidents, often linked to fibre cuts, power failures, or infrastructure faults, underscore ongoing challenges in Nigeria’s telecoms sector, particularly amid T2’s subscriber losses post-rebrand. NCC vows transparency via its portal to hold operators accountable and protect consumers.
Telecom
NCC Unveils Draft 5-Year Spectrum Roadmap, 60 GHz License-Exempt Guidelines to Boost Broadband, Innovation
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled two pivotal regulatory draft documents aimed at reshaping Nigeria’s communications sector over the next five years and fast-tracking deployment of ultra-high-speed wireless technologies.
NCC
In a public notice dated December 19, 2025, and issued pursuant to its mandate under the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003, the Commission published the Draft 5-Year Spectrum Roadmap for the Communications Sector (2025–2030) and Draft Guidelines for the Use of the 60 GHz License-Exempt Band for Multi-Gigabit Wireless Systems.
Both documents are accessible on the NCC website for stakeholder review, with the roadmap outlining strategic spectrum planning, allocation, and management to optimise utilisation, support emerging technologies like 5G and IoT, expand broadband access, and align with global best practices.
The Spectrum Roadmap emphasises four core pillars: bridging the digital divide through low-band spectrum and satellite services, attracting investments via flexible licensing models, enhancing service quality with mid-band optimisation, and fostering innovation in areas such as direct-to-device connectivity and secondary spectrum trading.
It sets ambitious targets including universal 4G coverage nationwide, 50 per cent 5G penetration in state capitals, and average broadband speeds of 100 Mbps by 2030, while addressing rising data demand through band refarming and efficient management.
Complementing this, the 60 GHz Guidelines establish a license-exempt framework for the 57–66 GHz band, enabling multi-gigabit speeds up to 10 Gbps for short-range applications like WiGig, fixed wireless access, enterprise connectivity, urban broadband, and backhaul solutions.
The rules mandate NCC type approval for equipment, site registration for outdoor use, and interference mitigation measures, while prohibiting wide-area networks to safeguard primary users.
In line with Section 58 of the NCA 2003, NCC invites comments from industry operators, equipment manufacturers, consumer groups, and the public, with submissions due by Friday, January 16, 2025, via email to [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].
The notice, signed by Mrs Nnenna Ukoha, Head of Public Affairs, stresses that stakeholder inputs will refine the frameworks to drive innovation, investment, competition, and sustainable growth in Nigeria’s telecoms ecosystem.
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