E-Business
Stemming The Tide Of Cyberbullying
In spite of the significant improvement benefits associated with these innovations, there are still some fears that hss come with the emergence of the internet.
One of the adverse effects that has emerged with the coming of the internet is cyberbullying. This is a serious trend that has brought fears inti the hearts of parents, the world over.
Studies have shown that cyberbullying is the greatest fear of parents when their kids make use of the internet.
This is true, when you consider the growing prevalence of digital technologies in schools.
The Internet, smartphones and tablets are now the primary tools in the exhibition of bullying behavior.
With the unlimited access to the internet through smart devices by of teens and kids of this present age, the negative surge of cyberbullying is believed to have surpassed kidnapping as the number one fear globally.
In simple terms, cyberbullying occurs when someone appears to be tormenting, threatening, harassing, or embarrassing a young person, using smart devices or technologies.
In other words, cyberbullying comes in different forms, such as harassment, flaming, masquerading, etc.
Some ways in which cyberbullies operate include creating fake profiles of someone or impersonating another person with the negative intent of harming someone’s reputation.
In some other cases, you share a private photo or a private message with someone, and you see that confidential stuff being spread all over the internet. From where the leak came from, you do not know.
Why Cyberbullying Should Be Fought
It is necessary for us to fight cyber bullying yo a standstill to avert the negative implications of this surge are enormous.
Just think of the physical bullying, for instance, your kid goes to school everyday, and he is being bullied.
You realize that such kid becomes reluctant to go to school again, whenever he remembers that one teacher or another student who is a bully is waiting to harrass him in school.
Besides being unwilling to go to school again, such child is psychologically troubled. The emotional and psychological effects of cyberbullying are similar to those of real-life bullying.
Aside from this, such a kid can experience negative physical and mental health issues.
Kids who are bullied are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, feelings of sadness, loneliness, changes in sleep and eating patterns, etc.
Studies also show that adults who were bullied as a youth were three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts or inclinations.
According to findings from the “2016 Norton Cyber Security Insights Report: Family Edition, “nearly 57 percent of parents choose to check their child’s browser history, 46 percent only allow access to certain websites, 48 percent allow internet access only with parental supervision”.
“A concern for many parents is that cyberbullying doesn’t stop when their child leaves school as long as your child is connected to a device, a bully can connect to them,” said Ritesh Chopra, Country Manager, Norton by Symantec.
“Nearly one in three parents of children ages 12-17 agree that bullying is a more serious concern than other dangers, including domestic terrorism, car accidents, and suicide”, according to a national survey commissioned by Care.com.
What Parents Should Do
Interestingly, when a child is in trouble, the parents are usually the last to be aware. Kids find it tough to open up to their parents when they are bullied online.
Some of them fear that revealing to their parents about their situation will exacerbate the issue. It, therefore, becomes a herculean task for parents to protect their children if you don’t understand the problem in the first instance.
In this wise, therefore, below are some tips that parents should adopted in preventing the surge of cyberbullying.
Monitor Your Kids Activities Online
It is pertinent for you to know what your kids are doing online. Most of the time, some of these kids spend time on social media such as Facebook, so you need, as a parent, have an understanding of how various social networking websites work.
You can sometimes ask your children for their Facebook status updates, profile pages or Facebook wall. From there, you can have an idea of what is going on.
Build Trust Between You and Your Kids
It does not help at all, to be harsh to your children in situations that requires being relaxed and gentle.
When you are known for being harsh, your kids become too scared to open up to you on issues like cyberbullying when they find themselves entangled with it online.
You should always make them feel very relaxed and try ti have discussions regularly with your children about online issues. You need to let them have confidence in you by telling them to come to you for help if anything is wrong with them.
Let your kids understand the risks associated with the internet. Discuss rules for online safety and Internet use with them. Set time limits of how long they should spend on social media or the internet for them and ensure that they follow it to the letter.
Avoid Blaming your Child for Falling Victim of Cyberbullying
When your child is bullied online, relax abd do not raise to much dust by blaming your child.
At that point, what your child needs is for you to be supportive and as show understanding. You need to investigate to figure out how long this has been happening and ensure that you work together with your kid to devise a solution to stem it instead of blaming your child.
Conclusion
Apart from knowing what your kid is doing online, you need to also let your kid in on that good old advice that as you are careful of dealing with strangers in real life, so also, they must be careful dealing with strangers online.
Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, minister of Interior, has announced the launch of an Online Visa Approval Center to eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks and reduce corruption in the visa application process.
Commissioned by the President in December, the new system ensures that applicants no longer need to visit a visa office, know anyone in the system, or lobby for approvals.
At a stakeholders’ sensitisation workshop on the implementation of the Nigeria Visa Policy (NVP) 2025, yesterday in Abuja, Dr. Tunji-Ojo said the visa is considered a very important document by the government because it is an instrument of migration management and an instrument of economic development.
The minister explained that Nigeria has to strike a delicate balance between national security and, of course, the ease of migration.
“And we think that it’s something that we can do and something we will do.
“We don’t have a physical Visa Approval Center. If you apply for a Nigerian visa anywhere in the world, you do so online. We process it here in Nigeria, and if approved, you receive your e-visa in your email,” he explained.
To enhance efficiency, the government has set a 48-hour deadline for processing e-visas.
“It is unprofessional and unacceptable for the Nigeria Immigration Service not to approve or provide feedback within 48 hours,” the minister stated.
“It breaks my heart that people need to lobby to even get visas to Nigeria. It shouldn’t be so. It shouldn’t be.
“For anybody that is qualified, for anybody that wants to do legitimate activities in Nigeria, such people should be able to come to Nigeria easily. And this is why we are opening our space. Mr. President is interested in foreign direct investments.”
Further, he said Nigeria is interested in partnering with the rest of the world to develop its economy but, “We can’t do that when we allow bottlenecks to hold us down. So these reforms, basically, are aimed at opening our space, enhancing national security, and we hope that the primary responsibilities of the visa scheme will be achieved.”
Kemi Nandap, controller general, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), said the NIS would fully digitize its e-visa platform and reduce visa classifications from 79 to 44 to enhance accessibility, transparency, and efficiency in the new visa policy.
She said, “At the core of this policy is the new e-visa platform—a fully digitized, centralized system that revolutionizes how foreign nationals interact with our country’s entry procedures. As part of this transformation, the Nigerian Visa Policy 2024 underwent a comprehensive review, resulting in a significant reduction in visa classifications from 79 to 44.
“These categories have been logically grouped to simplify procedures, reduce complexities, and greatly improve the user experience. Importantly, we have maintained the original purpose and intent of each visa class throughout this reform.”
Mr. Takao Shimokawa, director general, Economic Development Department at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has visited the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to discuss the forthcoming launch of the Nigeria-Japan Startup Hub Project.
Mr. Dejo Olawunmi, director of IT Infrastructure Solutions at NITDA and Mr. Takao Shimokawa, director general, Economic Development Department at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
This is in a strategic move to strengthen Nigeria’s startup ecosystem.
During his visit, Mr. Shimokawa was received by Mr. Dejo Olawunmi, director of IT Infrastructure Solutions at NITDA.
Their discussions focused on advancing technological innovation, fostering entrepreneurship, and enhancing venture capital development to support early-stage startups in Nigeria.
The Nigeria-Japan Startup Hub Project is designed to provide Nigerian startups with access to Japanese expertise, mentorship, and investment opportunities.
The initiative aims to create a collaborative environment where local entrepreneurs can scale their businesses by leveraging Japan’s advanced technology and business models.
By bridging Nigerian startups with Japanese investors and industry leaders, the project seeks to drive sustainable growth and innovation in Nigeria’s tech industry.
This partnership underscores the increasing economic and technological cooperation between the two nations, positioning Nigeria as a key player in the global startup landscape.
With the hub set to launch soon, stakeholders anticipate that it will provide critical resources for startups, enabling them to compete in the global market and contribute to Nigeria’s digital economy.
Kaspersky has identified and helped patch a sophisticated zero-day vulnerability in Google Chrome (CVE-2025-2783) that allowed attackers to bypass the browser’s sandbox protection system.
The exploit, discovered by Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), required no user interaction beyond clicking a malicious link and demonstrated exceptional technical complexity. Kaspersky researchers have been acknowledged by Google for discovering and reporting this vulnerability.
In mid-March 2025, Kaspersky detected a wave of infections triggered when users clicked personalised phishing links delivered via email. After clicking, no additional action was needed to compromise their systems.
Once Kaspersky’s analysis confirmed that the exploit leveraged a previously unknown vulnerability in the latest version of Google Chrome, Kaspersky swiftly alerted Google’s security team. A security patch for the vulnerability was released on March 25, 2025.
Kaspersky researchers dubbed the campaign “Operation ForumTroll”, as attackers sent personalised phishing emails inviting recipients to the “Primakov Readings” forum. These lures targeted media outlets, educational institutions, and government organisations in Russia.
The malicious links were extremely short-lived to evade detection, and in most cases ultimately redirected to the legitimate website for “Primakov Readings” once the exploit was taken down.
The zero-day vulnerability in Chrome was only part of a chain that included at least two exploits: a still-unobtained remote code execution (RCE) exploit that apparently launched the attack, while the sandbox escape discovered by Kaspersky constituted the second stage. Analysis of the malware’s functionality suggests the operation was designed primarily for espionage. All evidence points to an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group.
“This vulnerability stands out among the dozens of zero-days we’ve discovered over the years,” said Boris Larin, principal security researcher at Kaspersky GReAT. “The exploit bypassed Chrome’s sandbox protection without performing any obviously malicious operations – it’s as if the security boundary simply didn’t exist.
The technical sophistication displayed here indicates development by highly skilled actors with substantial resources. We strongly advise all users to update their Google Chrome and any Chromium-based browser to the latest version to protect against this vulnerability.”
Google has credited Kaspersky for uncovering and reporting the issue, reflecting the company’s ongoing commitment to collaboration with the global cybersecurity community and ensuring user safety.
Kaspersky continues to investigate Operation ForumTroll. Further details, including a technical analysis of the exploits and malicious payload, will be released in a forthcoming report once Google Chrome user security is assured.
Meanwhile, all Kaspersky products detect and protect against this exploit chain and associated malware, ensuring users are shielded from the threat.
This discovery follows Kaspersky GReAT’s previous identification of another Chrome zero-day (CVE-2024-4947), which was exploited last year by the Lazarus APT group in a cryptocurrency theft campaign.
In that case, Kaspersky researchers found a type confusion bug in Google’s V8 JavaScript engine that enabled attackers to bypass security features through a fake cryptogame website.
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