Author: ITPulse

Global cybersecurity company, Kaspersky has stressed that the best approach to the cybersecurity quagmire is to have zero trust for anyone in the digital world, especially as no one can consider themselves safe from cyberattacks, scams, malware and other nefarious actions. The company said though this might come across as cynical, the reality is that in the digital world, no one is totally safe. It emphasized that zero trust has become a familiar approach in enterprise security. But how can consumers benefit from its principles when perimeter defences such as anti-virus and firewall solutions have long been favoured? “With Kaspersky…

The National Information Technology Development Fund Scheme (NITDEF), which sponsors individuals abroad to study in various IT related fields has been suspended, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Mal. Kashifu Inuwa has revealed. Mal. Inuwa revealed this when he received the Management of Federal Polytechnic Nassarawa State led by its Rector, Dr Abdullahi Alhassan Ahmad at the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters in Abuja. He said the suspension of the scheme is to allow Nigeria look inward by investing in human skills acquisition, which will directly or indirectly create jobs across the country and ultimately, bring about more…

Discussions at the recently held Virtual Digital World 2020, organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) were centered around the essential nature of connectivity, the measures taken in the face of the pandemic and the unprecedented opportunities for the ICT sector in recovery from global crisis. These key areas were highlighted by global ministers, regulators and industry leaders during Ministerial Roundtables at the three days event, where priority areas for governments and the ICT industry were pinpointed. The areas are: Critical connectivity The pandemic has underlined the vital importance of connectivity. The ability to connect has moved way beyond a…

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday with met with various stakeholders drawn from the country’s teleom industry in a bid to secure their buy-in towards achieving the targets of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025. Speaking at the meeting, held at the Communications & Digital Economy Complex in Abuja, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission Prof. Umar Danbatta called on the Ministry of Communications & Digital Economy and its agencies, as well as the industry stakeholders to work together towards the attainment of the set goals of attaining 70 percent broadband target in the next five years. “The…

The ravaging Covid-19 pandemic, which is forcing businesses and organizations across the world to prioritize their spending on technology and IT services has reduced spending on Information Technology in 2020. According to data analysed by BuyShares, the spending on Information Technology nosedived by almost $210bn in 2020, representing a 5.5percent decrease year-over-year. BuyShares attributes this reduced spending to a situation, where many people decided to reset their budgets to finance only critical projects over initiatives aimed at transformation and growth. The global IT spending was growing for four years in a row before the outbreak of Covid-19. According to Gartner…

By Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai According to McKinsey and Company, banking in Nigeria has over $9 billion in value pools. Yet despite high levels of competition, the vast majority of consumers are underserved. Lack of access to services, especially in rural areas, issues of affordability, and poor user experience all contribute to the frustrations consumers experience. The uptake of new technologies in Nigeria’s financial services industry has typically been driven by this highly pressurised environment, where the customer is becoming increasingly powerful and wants to engage with brands over his or her preferred channels. In recent years, this trend has seen organisations…

In line with the Nigerian Communications Commission’s forward-looking regulatory approach to ensure Nigeria’s telecoms ecosystem is in tandem with global best practices, it decided to approved e-SIM trial for two Mobile Network operators in the country. The two operators, according to a statement signed by the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, are MTN Nigeria and 9Mobile. They are to carry out a trial on the workability of embedded Subscriber Identification Modules (e-SIM) Service in Nigeria. The trial, approved to run for a period of one year, will involve testing 5,000 e-SIMs by the two networks, subject to…

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has declared the Nigerian duo of Ikechukwu Umezurumba and Dominic Chidiebere Nwaogu among the winners of this year’s Innovation Challenge, which was part of the Global Innovation Forum, a flagship ITU event that focuses on fostering innovation based on information and communication technologies (ICTs), in line with Members States’ expectation from the Connect 2030 Agenda to “enable innovation in telecommunications/ICT in support of the digital transformation of society” (Goal 4). While Ikechukwu Umezurumba was among the winners in the digital change-maker challenge category, Dominic Chidiebere Nwaogu won in the category of the ecosystem best practice…

Ventures Platform Foundation, has launched an incubation platform where technology startups can apply to get the necessary funding, mentoring and support to design robust tech solutions which can solve the current inefficiencies around aid distribution and data management in relief efforts across the North East region of Nigeria.   The incubation programme, which is supported by the United State Embassy in Nigeria is met for early-stage companies building innovative tech solutions for communities hit by the crisis in North-East Nigeria. The entire programme will be conducted virtually with six successful startups recieving exclusive support for four months as they build, deploy…

A new survey by Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, has revealed that organizations are never the same after being hit by ransomware, adding that the confidence of IT managers and their approach to battling cyberattacks differ significantly depending on whether or not their organization has been attacked by ransomware. The global survey titled “Cybersecurity: The Human Challenge”, also noted that outsourcing IT security is already the norm, with 65 percent doing it in some capacity: 43percent use a combination of in-house and outsourcing while 22percent wholly outsource their IT security. Meanwhile, the survey revealed regional variations. Top of…