Month: <span>August 2017</span>

According to reports by the Nigerian Communications Week, the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission (NCC) has demanded that all mobile telecommunications firms block the use of pre-registered sim cards. The use of these sim cards are believed to be what criminals, especially kidnappers, armed robbers and fraudsters are using to perpetuate crime across the country. The commission also warned that those whose network is still carrying pre-registered sim cards will face severe punishment awaits any provider.

Ismail Adedigba, NCC deputy director, Consumer Affairs Bureau, gave the warning at the commission’s 87th consumer outreach in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. Adedigba, who chaired the event, frowned at complaints about the existence of pre-registered sim cards insisting that ”I expected to hear that all sim cards are registered. But I have issues with Service Providers here, how did we get these pre-registered Sims to start with?

“I think your networks should have the total number of available lines and the total number of subscribers in your database, and as such you should be able to know which Sims age registered and those that are not registered and automatically deactivate those that are pre-registered and those that are not properly registered.

“But a situation where are still having pre-registered sim cards with the advancement in technology today, is a surprise to me, and note that a severe punishment awaits any provider whose network is still carrying pre-registered sim cards.”

Source: IT News Africa

CWG has launched a software innovation hub in line with its resolve to set the pace as the top technology service provider in Africa.

The Innovation Hub will house the company’s software development team and matches world-class standards in terms style, finesse, and creativity with the main aim being to provide quality work spaces for the Tech-Engineering team to create innovative solutions.

The new space provides a better environment for improved work performance, enhances creativity, well-coordinated and suits different working styles (open, work-station, or conference) and as one of the Software Developers succinctly puts it; “Working in this Hub is just like working from home, the comfort, serenity and ambience is beautiful for what I do”.

“The story of the Innovation Hub is a testament to CWG’s Kaizen Spirit. Our mindset is to outdo our last accomplishment with continuous improvement in spite of limitations. Continuous improvement is the order of the day and we are embracing this more in the coming years, getting better and more creative with delivering innovative solutions that ensures our place as leaders in the ICT Industry,” Kunle Ayodeji, COO, CWG.

This further strengthens CWG’s commitment towards developing and deploying home-grown solutions to enable growth in major aspects of the economies of countries where we operate and Africa at large.

“Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organization and we will continue to invest in Innovative Ideas. We are willing to go the extra mile on the Solutions Development journey, ensuring overall efficiency, working as partners and partaking of the eventual benefits of the outcome.”, said James Agada; Chief Executive Officer, CWG Plc as he cut the ribbon to declare the Hub open.

CWG currently plays a key role in the Technology Economy in Nigeria having earned the reputation of deploying solutions to support Government, Banking Operations, Bill Payments, ATM Infrastructure, Telecommunications Support Services, Insurance and a host of other sector economies that have being impacted by CWG’s array of technology services cutting across ICT Infrastructure, Cloud Based Technology, Software Development, Data Centre, Communications and Managed Services.

This September, the company will be celebrating her 25th Anniversary Milestone and the launch of the Innovation Hub is pivotal to CWG’s youthful brand outlook and it is a burst of freshness to further encourage more creativity amongst our Software experts. Striving for excellence is an important aspect of professionalism, achieving it in a great working environment is a bonus.

Innovation is at the heart of our business and a creativity-inducing environment is an important factor in developing the great ideas and building viable solutions. This has again shows that CWG is adapting to global best standards and we recognized the workplace environment as important to productivity; thus we suit our corporate culture to suit this, without hampering our rich business heritage and legacy. We are right on the way to becoming one of the best places to work in Nigeria.

CWG Plc is a leading provider of Information and Communication Technology Solutions Services and currently has business operations in 4 African countries across West, Central, and Eastern Africa and is being touted as the Largest ICT Conglomerate out of Nigeria, deploying technology solutions that enable growth.

Source: Nigerian Communicationsweek

9Mobile quality of service (QoS) has fallen short of subscribers’ expectations as the Telecommunications Company experienced service disruptions in parts of Lagos State.

Investigations indicate the network started showing signs of downtime late evening, Thursday, last week, in some parts of Island- Ajah, VGC, Victoria Island and on the Mainland- Oshodi, Okota and GRA (Ikeja) and Alausa,.

As a result, some 9Mobile subscribers, took to the social media to criticize the poor quality of service.

Atunbi John @atunbijohn wrote “9Mobile internet service is so awful. Poor service per excellence”.

@Mahabi87 “Dead #9Mobile (etisalat) I’m leaving, #mtn you have a new customer. I’m just waiting for Data to finish”.

@Donwiseobioha “9Mobile bad network issues, what is your experience”.

“@9Mobileng I’m tweeting this from my new @MTNNG sin because I couldn’t deal with no service for 3 days and it seems like y’all doing nothing@”, @Iam_thelmar tweets in response to 9Mobile’s TGIF teaser.

However, Seyi Osundedo, head of Public Relations at 9Mobile in a short message to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek affirmed the network had witnessed downtime.

Though Osundedo could neither disclose the cause nor the expected time of restoration of the full capacity, he acknowledged thus, “…There was downtime which our technical team are aware of and are working on resolve”.

Source: Nigeria Communicationsweek

Kaspersky Lab experts have discovered a backdoor planted in a server management software product used by hundreds of large businesses around the world.

When activated, the backdoor allows attackers to download further malicious modules or steal data. Kaspersky Lab has alerted NetSarang, the vendor of the affected software, and it has promptly removed the malicious code and released an update for customers, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered.

ShadowPad is one of the largest known supply-chain attacks. Had it not been detected and patched so quickly, it could potentially have targeted hundreds of organisations worldwide.

In July, 2017 Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis (GReAT) team was approached by one of its partners – a financial institution.

The organisation’s security specialists were worried about suspicious DNS (domain name server) requests originating on a system involved in the processing of financial transactions.

Further investigation showed that the source of these requests was server management software produced by a legitimate company and used by hundreds of customers in industries like financial services, education, telecoms, manufacturing, energy, and transportation.

Further Kaspersky Lab analysis showed that the suspicious requests were actually the result of the activity of a malicious module hidden inside a recent version of the legitimate software.

Following the installation of an infected software update, the malicious module would start sending DNS-queries to specific domains (its command and control server) at a frequency of once every eight hours.

The request would contain basic information about the victim system (user name, domain name, host name). If the attackers considered the system to be “interesting”, the command server would reply and activate a fully-fledged backdoor platform that would silently deploy itself inside the attacked computer.

“ShadowPad is an example of how dangerous and wide-scale a successful supply-chain attack can be. Given the opportunities for reach and data collection it gives to the attackers, most likely it will be reproduced again and again with some other widely used software component.

“Luckily NetSarang was fast to react to our notification and released a clean software update, most likely preventing hundreds of data stealing attacks against its clients.

“However, this case shows that large companies should rely on advanced solutions capable of monitoring network activity and detecting anomalies. This is where you can spot malicious activity even if the attackers were sophisticated enough to hide their malware inside legitimate software,” said Igor Soumenkov, security expert, Global Research and Analysis Team, Kaspersky Lab.

Nigeria Communicationsweek