E-Business
Why Internet of Things Is Not Just A Tech Project
The Internet of Things is here to stay as a range of connected devices become mainstream in our work and business lives, says Keith Fenner, Vice-President Sage Enterprise Africa & Middle East.
Writing on the subject, Fenner quoted forecasts from Gartner, which show, this year will end with around 8.4 billion connected things in use worldwide, a number that will grow to around 20.4 billion by 2020.
“Yet the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) remains misunderstood”, Fenner opined.
He went ahead to emphasis that the technology industry is on a drive to connect everything from electric toothbrushes to heavy factory machinery to the Internet.
Fenner writes “Many senior executives are thinking about it as a new technology or platform rather than what it really is – a way to completely change businesses and its processes.
“Taking full advantage of the IoT takes some radical thinking and a willingness to break from business as usual. As MIT researcher, George Westerman, puts it: “Successful digital transformation is like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly…many senior execs aren’t thinking about butterflies. They’re just thinking about faster caterpillars.”
“Many IoT projects fall short of the mark in helping companies to drastically improve their business processes. As was the case with mobile – success in the Internet of Things will come from understanding how it will reshape consumer and employee behaviour and how it can be used to transform businesses’ operations and operating models
More Than Just A Tech Project
“The hard part is not transforming processes through technology, but transforming the organisation and its culture. The future will belong to the organisations who are better at embedding the technology in business processes to drive radical improvements, and who do this not just once, but over and over again.
“The IoT isn’t a simple technology project – ‘implementing the Internet of Things’ isn’t a viable or interesting goal in itself. The IoT is a value creation tool, a way to transform the customer experience and reinvent business processes for the digital age. To make the most of its potential, the business’s senior leadership should drive the IoT strategy and consider how it can enable new business models, underpin innovation and bring massive improvements to efficiency and productivity.
“The greatest digital opportunities across Africa reside in customer experience, business operations and business modelling. Business leaders should look at how connected sensors and devices, and the reams of data they produce, can be put to use to lift competitiveness by reinventing business processes.
“The IoT is a complex interconnected network of related parts that sense context, transfer data, process information and initiate action. Data streams originating from all sorts of sensors built into a wide variety of “things” (e.g., machines, cars, mobile and immobile goods, clothes, or even human beings) enable companies to create all sorts of innovative processes, services and products”.
The Real Magic Comes From Using Machine Learning To Put That Data To Work
He continues, “Smart algorithms and AI can be applied to data collected at scale to find patterns, trends and indicators the human eye might miss. A few of the possibilities include:
“Using predictive maintenance for technical infrastructure in cities, factories, plants and others to improve reliability of machinery while reducing maintenance costs”.
He added that leveraging traffic data from many different sources including smart city data from traffic lights, streets, or other vehicles to optimise the management of corporate and government vehicle fleets. “In fact, Uber already uses smart data to match drivers to passengers and find the smartest routes for its riders.
“Creating innovative consumer offerings, such as Amazon-style dash buttons to supply customers automatically and predictively with goods and services.
“Providing medical care services, for example using wearables and even (in future) ingestible sensors, to monitor elderly people living alone at home.
Changing The Way Industries Work
“Looking to the future, the IoT promises to change the way industries work as much as the invention of the assembly line, just-in-time manufacturing or the creation of the Internet itself.
“Picture a world where a customer places an order for a running shoe on an e-commerce site, uploading video footage of the manner in which he walks and a scan of his foot.
“From there, a tailored running shoe is manufactured at a nearby facility using a 3D printer – with components shipped from other facilities as needed – and delivered to the customer’s home in the evening. From sales to logistics to manufacturing, a network of sensors works towards getting a personalised product in the customer’s hands with as little friction and as much speed as possible.
“In the background, big data analytics and advanced artificial intelligence will be used to make sense of the flood of data from the IoT. This could be all about some business gains, such as reducing stock held in warehouses to free up working capital or vastly reducing the costs of managing complex machinery.
“It will also enable various ‘as a service’ business models, where everything from car insurance to shoes can be customised to customer needs. The leaders in digital transformation will master the ability to build, deliver and repeat innovations based on the IoT better than their competitors. But to get it right, they will need business leaders who understand the role the IoT can play from a business outcome perspective”, he concludes.
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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