E-Business
Cloud Central to Business Continuity in Africa – Report
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed cloud computing to the front of decision-makers minds, according to the new Cloud in Africa 2020 Report, with business disaster recovery and remote working identified as key areas where the technology has been instrumental in support.
The report released yesterday by market research firm World Wide Worx, in partnership with F5, Dell Technologies, Digicloud Africa and Intel, the study maps out latest cloud trends across continent, including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Malawi.
It showed that 91% of surveyed respondents deemed cloud computing to be “important” in helping with business’ response to the crisis.
According to research, since the outbreak, the technology platform has been used primarily for disaster recovery (91%) and remote working (82%), followed by customer service activities (52%).
Furthermore, eight out of ten respondents (80%) believe that cloud computing has made a significant contribution to governments’ efforts in dealing with the pandemic. The most common uses by governments were remote working (69%), public communications (55%), and crisis coordination (50%).
During this time, historic perceptions of cloud being costly and risky have also largely dissipated. As many as 84% of respondents now believe cloud computing is “cost-effective” and only 12% regard it as inherently “risky”.
“Covid-19 has clearly catalysed decision-makers’ receptivity to the cloud in recent months, but a significant momentum was already building across Africa,” says Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx and lead analyst on the project.
“The transition to digital channels will likely continue beyond the pandemic as organisations adopt fundamentally different ways of working. In many cases, it is prompting different architectural solutions for expansion, such as ‘cloud bursting’ and augmenting on-premises deployments with virtual appliances.”
Investing in the future
The report shows that 38% of decision-makers increased their cloud services spend last year. South Africa led the way, with 82% stating that they had increased cloud spend, followed by 59% in Zimbabwe, and 50% in both Nigeria and Botswana.
According to World Wide Worx, cloud investment is also growing as a percentage of overall IT budgets, particularly in countries with traditionally less mature IT markets. For 71% of Zambian respondents, between a quarter and half of their IT budgets are allocated to the cloud.
The same is true for 59% in Zimbabwe, and 56% in Malawi. In Namibia, 65% said more than half of IT budgets were focused on cloud. In Botswana, 14% reported that 100% of budgets went to cloud-related IT.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, which is the region’s most mature cloud market, 45% of decision-makers indicated that cloud accounted for less than a quarter of IT budgets. 34% said it was between a quarter and half, and 11% put it above three quarters.
In 2021, almost two-thirds (61%) of all respondents are set to increase investments in cloud services. 36% expect investment to remain at current levels, and only 1% anticipate decreasing spend. Significantly, more than half of all respondents (56%) estimate that over a quarter of applications will have moved to the cloud by the end of this year.
The research highlighted that South Africa as the most advanced in cloud adoption and datacentre location. By contrast, only 50% of Nigerian companies increased spend on cloud.
Business efficiency is regarded as the main benefit to cloud, with agility/ operational flexibility seen as the next main advantage.
“Africa’s embrace of cloud computing is clearly accelerating with purpose, which will have a profound impact on organisations’ abilities to innovate, create new services and compete on both a regional and global level,” said Samir Sehil, F5 regional cloud sales manager for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
“Across the region, it is also hugely encouraging to see that businesses are starting to tailor cloud infrastructures to their specific needs by using multi-cloud application services. As cloud- and container-native application architectures mature and scale in Africa, we expect to see far more organisations deploying related app services, such as Ingress control and service discovery, both on premises and in the public cloud.”
Benefits and risks
While there are some regional variations in strategic benefits, 40% of respondents believe that cloud computing has had a direct, positive impact on market share in the past two years. The single biggest benefit cited by respondents is business efficiency (63%), followed by agility and operational flexibility (53%), and improved customer service (45%). Improved time-to-market was also an importance outcome for over a third of respondents (37%).
Cloud computing also emerged as a powerful platform for intangible elements of organisations’ internal strategy. Almost two-thirds (67%) reported an improvement in cross-organisation innovation due to the cloud. Over half (55%) also experienced noticeable brand perception improvements.
“Typically, businesses have hesitated to digitally transform and adopt the cloud, mainly because change is difficult,” says Nick Treurnicht, Digicloud Africa. customer engineer.
“Since the pandemic, the will of leaders to change at pace has increased by an order of magnitude. The situation has clearly proved that this type of rapid adaptation is possible and, crucially, that businesses can thrive in the cloud.”
When it comes to risk, the biggest concern for most is still the potential for a data breach (63% of respondents). The main, and closely related, multi-cloud challenge in Africa is the need to apply consistent security policies across all applications and their locations. Nevertheless, as many as 50% claim to be addressing the issue by building cloud security strategies on a per-app basis.
“Complexity is usually the biggest barrier to reaping the efficiency benefits offered by cloud,” says Greg McDonald, director of systems engineering at Dell Technologies South Africa. “However, the multi-cloud doesn’t have to be complex.
“The right platform can integrate all the different components and give a clear view of cloud operation. These can then be scheduled, automated and analysed in real-time. More than ever, companies can extend their hybrid cloud systems interfaces easily and get rid of the management complexity.”
The study also found that the cloud helped governments, especially enabling officials to work remotely, and also to reinforce communication to the public and to coordinate response to the crisis.
However, the research also underlined the extent to which governments in Africa are not cloud-ready and according to Goldstuck, governments should not be leading the charge on 4IR because they are behind business in this regard.
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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