The Nation Newspaper

Category: e-Business

  • ‘Science, others hold future for economy’

    Encouraging students to embrace Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects would help bridge skills gap in the information communication technology (ICT) sector, an electronic payment and digital commerce firm, Interswitch Group, has said.

    Its Founder & GMD, Mitchell Elegbe, who spoke ahead the hosting of the first edition of the InterswitchSPAK project with a N12.5million-scholarship among other prizes, said when students are encouraged early in their life to pick interest in STEM subjects, they end up designing solutions to societal problems.

    He said the project is the firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative that is primarily focused on driving increased interest in the study of STEM subjects among Senior Secondary School students across the country.

    Elegbe said the session would give the students the opportunity to meet real-life models who prove that success is possible, regardless of existing challenges. It will focus on knowledge sharing, as well as motivating the students on character building and assuming leadership responsibilities in all their spheres of contact.

    He said: “The Masterclass is a real experiential window for the students, where they do not only meet successful people who are providing solutions, they are motivated and prepped by these people to begin to develop the right mind set and attitude for leadership and success.”

    He said the initiative is multifaceted-made as it is up of the TV quiz show which includes the Innovation Challenge, the MasterClass, and the InterswitchSPAK volunteers’ week, all targeted at students aged between 14 and 17 years in SS 2 or year 11, as the case maybe. InterswitchSPAK aims to encourage and guide the students on career paths that will help them achieve full optimisation of their potentials and dreams to become innovators and entrepreneurs.InterswitchSPAK 1.0. began with a national qualifying examination from which the top 81 students out of the over 11,000 students from various private and public secondary schools across the 36 states of the federation, including the FCT, qualified to compete in the TV quiz show.

  • MTN mPulse unveiled

    MTN Nigeria has unveiled a new proposition it said is designed for tweens and teens (ages nine-15). It said it will enable them to learn and gain useful skills while having fun.

    During the launch, MTN transformed the venue into an impressive wonderland tagged “mPulse Planet,” providing attendees with lots of memorable attractions and activities.

    This included a Virtual Reality masterclass facilitated by a 13-year-old, JSS3 student, Obaloluwa Odelana, and the youngest hyper-realism artist in Africa, Kareem Waris Olamilekan of Waspa Art, both of whom inspired children at the event.

    General Manager, Consumer Marketing, Oluwole Rawa, said: “We always seek to proffer innovative and relevant solutions that enable our customers connect with their tomorrow. This platform does precisely that, providing a controlled environment where our youngsters can explore and learn more, and have fun while doing it.

    “MTN is a community of people from across the country, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters some of who are parents themselves. We all have family connections and like you, are dedicated to protecting and nurturing a brighter future.”

    The mPulse package comes with a voice plan and a fun, educative website which hosts a wide variety of courses and study aids to help children from Primary 1 to SS3 excel. The portal also provides a bouquet of single and multiplayer games as well as life skill videos. From computer programming, fashion designing, medicine and blogging to engineering, writing, data science and motivational speaking and others there is something for every interest.

    The portal has built-in parental controls. Once a child is signed up, the registered parent/guardian can track and control what the child is accessing on the Internet.

  • Spectranet introduces Mobile App for enterprise internet services, upgrades website

    Spectranet 4GLTE has introduced a Mobile app for seamless internet connectivity and solutions to Nigerian homes and businesses.

    The internet service provider has also re-launched of its website.

    The move is aimed at bringing innovative disruptions to internet service market closer to Nigerians whilst offering more value to customers.

    Riding on aesthetics, the website has been made more visually appealing and it has been designed with new features comprising Spectranet Enterprise Business Solutions and improved means of accessing and purchasing the brand’s data modems and plans.

    Speaking on the strategic moves, Chief Executive Officer, Ajay Awasthi notes: “Spectranet is keen on keeping homes and families connected as we push frontiers in providing innovative, internet solutions with customer-centric mindset.

    “The new look of our corporate website is visually appealing and engaging. It’s an all-in-one hub with sufficient information on our services, data plans, and modems. The site makes it easier for customers to access our services seamlessly. This is what we have been doing over the years.

    “We are committed to sustaining this tradition, hence the need for this move. The website comes with features that will aid customers in accessing our customer-centric payment channels for data plans and modems. We are equally using the website to set a new benchmark in pushing the enterprise internet services market with innovative products and services.

    The Spectranet Mobile app offers customers seamless connectivity. It comes with a unique artificial intelligence, EVA, who provides instant responses to questions raised by customers on Spectranet offers and services.

    Head of Marketing, Mike Ogor says “the app will increase customer engagement and provide them with more values.With the mobile app, connectivity becomes seamless and payment for subscription is made simpler. The app offers customers easy access to check their account balance and other related information.

    “Eva is available every day of the week to provide answers to questions faster. The app is another innovative way of enhancing customers’ internet experience and their accessibility to our network.”

    Customers can log on to www.spectranet.com.ng to access the improved website and obtain information on Spectranet Mobile app.

    To install the app, click on this link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apps.spectranet

  • Nigeria to represent Africa at global cyberlympics

    Two Nigerian teams of cyber security professionals from a group called the Naija SecForce have emerged African Champions in Global Cyberlympics – the Olympics for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers  around the world.

    NaijaSecForce and Ek0pwn3rs came first and second and are to represent the continent on the global stage. Both teams also made it to the top 12 position in the world in the online qualifying round of the competition, having solved all the challenges from the pre-qualifying round.

    Global Cyberlympics is an hands-on cyber security team competition that brings together the best ethical hackers from around the world to compete in a series of challenges such as forensics, penetration testing, cryptography, malware analysis – capture the flag challenges.

    This year’s competition was full of intrigues as the participants were given hardened systems to break into and other complex tasks to complete within 12 hours. They defeated teams from other nations and the African region, such as Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Sudan and Ghana to get the top spot.

    Judgment was based on the speed at which systems were hacked, the number of vulnerabilities found, challenges solved or flags found and the techniques used to uncover and exploit them.

    NaijaSecForce team is made up of Rotimi Akinyele (Team Captain), Oluwaeseun Oyelude (PwC Nigeria), Funmipe Olofinlade (eSentry Systems Ltd), Eyitemi Egbejule (Python Software Foundation Fellow), Shuaib Oladigbolu (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology) and Rajesh TV (ENCODE).

    Ek0pwn3rs has in its team: Abimbola Jaiyeola (Team Captain), Chinedu Onwukike (IBM, Canada), Chidi Obum (Cyberinfocts), Olalekan Ismail (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology), Oladipupo Oyediji (PhynxLabs) and Adetutu Ogunsowo (Digital Jewels Ltd).

    Both teams are to represent the continent at the finals, scheduled for September 13 in Atlanta, United States of America (USA).

    They will be competing with the winners from other continents and top cybersecurity professionals across the globe.

     

     

     

     

  • NCC, CBN may clampdown on electronic fraudsters

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may soon introduce a scheme that will enable banks and telecommunications companies to ban owners of any bank account or the mobile phone line traced to fraud.

    The CBN and NCC  are reportedly working with the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), following the spate of electronic fraud involving Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD ) telephone lines and internet banking transfers.

    When introduced, owners of any bank account or mobile line traced to any fraud case, especially electronic fraud, would be banned for life from operating any bank account or GSM in Nigeria.

    The pervasive electronic banking fraud in the banking sector has left customers, banks and regulators worried.

    Some experts claimed that the most significant risks to banks are self-serving or criminal acts carried out by some insiders.

    According to them, when these insiders use their technical knowledge to alter or disable security controls, it can be even more difficult to detect abuse.

    But it becomes more dangerous when insiders conspire with criminals outside, showing that depositors money in the banks are not safe.

    For instance, fraudsters now inundate banks’ customers with text messages to authenticate accounts with banks.

    The preciseness of the messages with accompanying data show they could only have got the details from insiders in the banks.

    Elsewhere, cyber security experts have also berated telecommunications operators over the prevalence of SIM swap fraud in the country, arguing that such fraud could be possible with an insider in the network operator of the subscriber that is targeted.

    SIM swapping is a sophisticated form of fraud and falls under social engineering. Fraudsters will distribute phishing emails, trying to ascertain as much personal information from victims as possible, according to Nigeria CommunicationWeek..

     

  • New push for pervasive cyber resilience

    The rise and acceptance of over the top (OTT) platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have come with challenges of threats to individuals and organisations, big and small. An expert has stressed the need for firms to build against cyber security threat resilient walls to avoid early extinction. Lucas Ajanaku reports.

    An information technology (IT) expert has advised businesses, both big and small, to invest heavily on cyber security resilient solutions or risk the threat of sudden extinction.

    Speaking in Lagos, the Country Managing Director, Accenture Nigeria,  Niyi Yusuf , said the advice became imperative in view of the confluence of social media, mobile devices, analytics and cloud solution especially on pervasive platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, which have led to remarkable advances in digital solutions that are improving the way people live and work.

    According to Yusuf, the digital trend is further accentuated in the country by the youthful demography and increasingly affordable devices.

    “Nigerian companies are racing into the digital future—adopting technology-enabled operating and business models that drive bottom- and top-line growth. These include SMEs, Startups, FInTechs, corporate and listed companies taking advantage of the many benefits going digital is offering business. But they are not prepared for the new cyber risks that come with the connected, data-driven future enterprise,” he said.

    According to Cybint, there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds. Since 2013, there are 3,809,448 records stolen from breaches every day while some industry conservative estimates indicate that cybercrime will generate at least $1.5 trillion in 2018 on a global level, and Nigeria is not immune.

    He said to be cyber resilient, organisations need to infuse security into everything they do—and every new thing they are preparing to do. Future business relies upon constant, intimate digital connections with suppliers, partners, virtual workforce and customers to stay relevant and competitive. It uses intelligent technologies and big data in all facets of business operations—from C-suite decision making to crafting custom offers for internet shoppers in pursuit of profitable growth.

    He said Accenture asked 1,400 C-suite executives, including Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), how they prioritise security in new business initiatives, whether their security plans address future business needs, what security capabilities they have, and their level of internal and external collaboration on security.

    “We found that 38 per cent of the companies bring the CISO into all discussions at the beginning stage of considering new business opportunities. Additionally, half of the CISOs admit that their responsibilities are growing faster than their ability to address them.

    “Business will continue to have more intimate digital connections with suppliers, partners, virtual workforce and customers to stay relevant and competitive. This comes with additional cyber risk. All that sensitive data, connectivity and automation multiplies the opportunities for hackers by expanding the “surface area” exposed to cyber-attack. And, because digital systems are so embedded in daily operations, the potential damage from even a single security incident is magnified.

    “You do not need to roll back your digital agenda as there are ways to build the cyber resilience you need to grow confidently. To do this there are three key things you need to build into your business. The first is to develop a “bend, but don’t break” approach to securing the enterprise that combines the disciplines of cybersecurity, business continuity and enterprise resilience. The second is the ability to operate while under persistent threats and sophisticated attacks. This will enable your business embrace disruption safely, strengthen customer trust and boost shareholder value. Lastly, you must elevate the role of security in your organisation and this requires leaders to communicate its importance and manage its application,” Yusuf said.

    He said organisations can do a number of things to build cyber resilience. The first is making business leaders resilience leaders – by including the security team in strategy sessions and extending expertise and accountability for cybersecurity to the front-line of the business.

    Another is supporting the security leader as a trusted business enabler – by helping the CISO to be more “business-savvy,” and creating new security roles within business units to bridge the gap between security and the business.

    “Make employees part of the solution – by ensuring all employees are trained in the basics and engaged to act as advocates for cybersecurity, and potentially using technology to track suspicious behaviors; be an advocate for protecting customers – by educating customers about how to protect themselves while securing consumer data to meet new regulation (such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation); and think beyond your enterprise to your ecosystem – by collaborating with partners, suppliers and other third parties to share cybersecurity knowledge, products and services,” he said.

    He said corporate security experts have made great progress in the war against cybercrime, adding that winning the next war will require both new strategies and new weapons. Top leaders can ensure the success of the connected, intelligent, autonomous business by making sure that security is a core competency across the organisation, he added. “If they do this, companies will not only keep the enemy at bay, they will also build trust with customers and partners and develop the bulletproof business processes that will make them stronger competitors. With pervasive cyber resilience, the future business can grow with confidence,” he said..

  • Women can unlock N19.7Billion for Nigeria’s economy, says Facebook

    Women who want to start their own businesses have the potential to boost the Nigerian economy by N19.7 billion, according to research released by Facebook.

    The study, conducted by Development Economics on behalf of Facebook*, also reveals that if the number of women who said they were ‘very likely’ to start a business did so (44%), this would create over 7 million new businesses within four years and over 8.9 million jobs within five years.

    Compared to men, women are more likely to be interested in setting up businesses in Food & Drink (30%), Tourism & Leisure (13%), Lifestyle (10%) and Business Services (10%).

    The motivations for women wanting to set-up a business also varies, with financial gains amongst the highest (56%), followed by wanting to create job opportunities for family or other people (45%), those wanting to work around family commitments (40%) and those wanting to be their own boss (39%).

    Lack of access to finance (36%) is the cited as the main barrier to women setting up independently. Facebook’s research also shows that among those likely to start a business, not sure of how to get started (32%), not feeling prepared or ready (30%) and lack of access to premises or equipment (26%), are the key reasons holding them back from taking this step.

    These impact women at every stage of their life – with women 55+ being less likely to start a business followed by those between 35-44.

    “Facebook recognise how important women are in building stable economies, and the potential impact of this in Nigeria is encouraging to see” said Abi Williams, Facebook SMB Sales Manager EMEA. “We know that when women do better, economies do better, and with the right support, tools and trainings in place Nigerian women entrepreneurs can, and will be able to compete on a global level.”

    The study also reveals:

    The use of online tools

    • In terms of the use of online tools to facilitate the sale of products or services to potential customers, the proportion of female managers in Nigeria reporting the use of such tools was 83 percent compared to 74 percent for males.
    • A slightly higher proportion of female business managers reported the use of online tools to enable customers to pay for products or services (39 percent for females compared to 37 percent for males).

    Timing of business starts

    • Overall, of those women who are very interested in setting up a business, over 4.1 million appear to want to set up their business within 1 year. A further 2.5 million anticipate establishing their business within 2 or 3 years, and 378,000 say they expect it would be more than 4 years in the future.

  • Nigeria achieves 70% broadband penetration

    Telecoms sector regulator Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said going by the long and short term targets of the National Broadband Plan (NBP), the country has achieved 70 per cent broadband penetration.

    Its Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Prof Garba Umar Dmanbatta, who spoke in Abuja with IT editors during a media interaction, said though the country has gone beyond the 20 per cent minimum broadband penetration as envisaged by the NBP, it is yet to hit the maximum target of 30 per cent.

    He said: “Our performance shows that we as a nation have achieved 70 per cent broadband penetration. To meet the maximum target of 30 per cent broadband penetration, all other agencies that have roles to play, must perform the roles assigned to them by the NBP document.

    “The NBP stated that the country must achieve five-fold in broadband penetration, but this of course depends on the minimum and maximum threshold.

    “By multiplying four per cent minimum level of broadband by five, which represents the five- year broadband plan, it will give 20 per cent minimum broadband target and by multiplying six per cent maximum broadband penetration as at 2012 by the five years broadband plan, it will give 30 per cent broadband penetration, which is maximum target at the end of 2018.

    “Nigeria had in 2017, surpassed the minimum target of 20 per cent, working towards achieving the maximum target of 30 per cent by the end of 2018. This is according to the NBP.

    “As of today, Nigeria has achieved 22 per cent broadband penetration, which is close to achieving the 30 per cent.

    “The achievement in broadband penetration gave rise to the first phase licensing of Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to drive broadband infrastructure deployment that will enable broadband penetration.”

    According to CEO, the licence was planned to cover six geopolitical zones of the country, as well as Lagos that was mapped out as a zone for the purpose. MainOne was licensed to cover Lagos Zone, iConnect, a subsidiary of IHS was granted licence to cover Northcentral zone.

    “These two zones were licensed before I came on board as NCC’s EVC, and it was during my tenure that we licensed additional five zones. They include Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast, Southsouth.

    “The beauty of the licence is that it is cheap because the NCC is not keen at making so much money in licences. We are building a system that will make Nigeria Inter and interconnected,” he said.

    He recalled that on assumption of office in 2015, the management of the Commission unveiled the Eighth-Point Agenda for the industry, among which is broadband penetration, stressing that Commission, under his leadership, is keen at driving broadband penetration in the country.

    “Before we came on board in 2015, there was a Presidential Broadband Committee set up by the Federal Government and the committee was chaired by the former NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe and Zenith Bank Chairman, Mr. Jim Ovia. The committee did a good job in coming up with a detailed five-year National Broadband Plan (NBP) from 2013-2018 for the country.

    “On Page 9 of the NBP, it stated that broadband penetration as at 2012 was between four and six per cent and there were measure through which broadband penetration could be achieved,”  Dambatta said, adding, however, that the achievement of broadband penetration is not the responsibility of NCC alone, but a combined responsibility of agencies, such as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), NigComSat, Galaxy Backbone, and other critical stakeholders, such as telcos. “NCC and other agencies of government were given their roles to play in other to achieve faster broadband penetration,” he insisted.

    On the challenges facing the achievement of NBP, he said there are national and regional challenges to broadband penetration. “In these two broad areas of challenges, there are backbone infrastructure challenges as well as challenges of broadband access in underserved and unserved areas of the country.

    “In the area of access, we have about 200 access gaps but through the effort of NCC, we have been able to reduce them to about 190. Nigerians living within the 190 access gap areas, are not experiencing telecommunications services and this is a challenge we need to address as a country.

    “It addresses the challenges, there is need for capacity building in order to leverage ICT to do greater things and in better ways. So, we need to sensitise the people and empower them with ICT tools that will make them achieve their dreams.

    “NCC for instance, is pioneering the Advanced Digital Acquisition Programme for tertiary institutions, where we have the highest concentration of talented youths. “By the time they acquire the skills, they will be able to develop ICT Applications. NITDA is also involved in ICT training and skills acquisition through its sponsored scholarship programme for students studying ICT related courses up to doctorate level.”

  • ‘Why telcos should pay 0.005% cybercrime levy’

    A professional group, Information Technology Security Professionals (ITSSP), a group within the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), has said telcos must pay the 0.005 per cent levy specified in the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015 because the fund was designed to train the requisite man power to fight the scourge of cyber-criminals in the country.

    Its Executive Secretary, Rogba Adeoye, said the Cybercrime Act was promulgated in 2015. He said the component of it which is the fund is  dependent on the setting up of a board which he said was constituted since last year. “The Act states that there should be a board in place. This board is charged with the responsibility of managing the fund which has probably been opened by the CBN because the account must be opened  before you collect the fund,” he said.

    The Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) had threatened to hike service charges should the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) compel its members to pay the fund. Section 44  provides for the establishment of a National Cyber Security Fund. Section 44.2 (a) provides for a Levy of 0.005 of all electronic transactions by the businesses specified in the second schedule to the Act. Schedule states that GSM service providers and all telecos and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are to pay the charge.

    According to him, the money is meant to develop capacity in the area of cybercrimes, arguing that if that was the case, why would the telcos kick against it since they are not the only organisation that would pay.

    “We view this seriously. As an advocacy group we stromgly beleive that they don’t have the right to stand up against a law that has been passed at the point of being complied with.

    “ATCON should re-examine its position on this and have a rethink.  There is need to develop the infrastructure and human capacity in the area of cyber security. We are of the opinion that the development necessary in cyber security will be to secure their networks too,” he said.

    According to him, cash are daily lost to cyber-crooks using the infrastructure provided by the telecoms services providers. “The telecoms operators should not be seen as organisations not cooperating with the Federal Government in the fight against cybercrimes. Sadly, they are not cooperating because the step they are not taking the step they are expected to take. Where is the funding needed to build capacity to tackle cybercrimes going to come from if they insist they will not pay?

    “Everybody needs protection whether you are a telecoms operator, or a private citizen. Cash sent through electronic services does not discriminate.

    “If the necessary steps are not taken to prevent losses, people will lose their money through the cyberspace,” Adeoye said.

  • Winners emerge in Access Bank, AFF hackathon

    Team Cosmos Constellation (C-Stell) emerged as winners of the //Re:Code Nigeria Hackathon 2018 themed “Data Hack” which was sponsored by Access Bank Plc in partnership with Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF).

    The team was part of the 115 multiple teams of talented developers, designers, problem-solvers, out-of-the-box thinkers, and code magicians that participated in the event.

    //Re:Code Nigeria Hackathon is an event that brings together developers from diverse background in Nigeria to collaborate in providing innovative solutions to help resolve some of the Nation’s toughest challenges in the financial services industry.

    Participants were grouped into 26 teams to provide solutions to three problem statements, and pitch their solutions to the judges within a time frame of 48hours. The winners went home with a cash prize totalling almost N5million among other prices.

    The winning team this year, Cosmos Constellation (C-Stell) created a system to minimise demurrage contributed by human errors by creating a system that uses optical character recognition to fetch text from scanned documents. It also provides notifications to minimise demurrage and offers the tracking of shipments across ports.

    Team Ace took second place with their solution called TrackIt. They created a system that not only views and gives up to date tracking of shipments, but can check analytics and provide information of all payments accrued and shipments in process or honoured in real time.

    Third place went to Team BAT (Building Awesome Technologies). They created a Smart assistant which leverages Imputed data set, Unsupervised Deep-learning algorithm and Internet of things to aid and guide the users in making informed decision while keeping engagement simple.