E-Business
Commission Vows to Prosecute Online Service Providers for Copyright Infractions

Online service providers, including hosts of e-libraries, would be held responsible for any copyright infractions on their platforms, according to John O. Asein, director-general, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC)
Asein, who spoke during deliberations with the newly elected executive of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) on a courtesy call at the Commission’s Head Office in Abuja, disclosed that the Commission was paying more attention to online activities with a view to curbing the sale of pirated books through online stores.
Addressing a seven-man delegation led by Camillus Ukah, new ANA president, accompanied by its immediate past President, Denja Abdullahi, Asein called on ANA to constitute an anti-piracy committee to interface with the Commission for proactive, sustained and effective anti-piracy campaign.
He decried contract gaps between authors and publishers in the country and indicated that the Commission would collaborate with ANA to develop model contracts to ensure proper rights clearance and adequate remuneration for authors in the book industry.
Noting that the absence of proper contractual agreements between authors and publishers has left many authors with unpleasant experiences, the Director-General also observed the necessity for new business models to ensure adequate recompense for authors, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stressing the importance of the literary field, Asein noted that creative writing was the bedrock of the wider creative industry, including Nollywood.
In his words: “The movie industry could not have been where it is today without the literary talents turning out excellent film scripts.
“The author of the film script is often unsung, but they set the tone for good films and, like the faces of Nollywood, these scriptwriters also deserve to be celebrated.”
The Director-General gave special commendation to the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, for recently demonstrating his unalloyed commitment to copyright values and lending his voice to denounce copyright infringement and abuses.
Asein said the Commission would be pleased to adopt the Nobel Laurette as a Copyright Champion to help fight book piracy in the country.
He called on other notable authors to also step up support for the campaign against copyright piracy.
The Director-General urged ANA members to take advantage of the Commission’s copyright e-registration system and avail themselves of the whistleblowing policy of the NCC by alerting the Commission on suspected pirates for effective enforcement.
He said: “We should not allow rogues to take over the copyright space.
“ANA should intensify its copyright enlightenment campaign and encourage its members to sound an alarm wherever they find pirates at work.
“The Commission, on its part, pledges to always respond promptly to any alarm.”
While calling on the new executive to upscale the association’s reading campaign, the Director-General urged ANA to support the efforts of the Nigeria Association of the Blind to make more books available in accessible formats for the benefit of blind and visually impaired persons.
Asein further thanked ANA for helping to sustain the Reproduction Rights Society of Nigeria and expressed hope that REPRONIG would be assisted further to become a viable collective management organisation for the benefit of Nigerian authors.
“When CMOs are threatened with extinction, we owe them a lifeline to keep afloat,” he said.
Asein commended the enviable legacy of visionary leadership in ANA, adding that the Association has demonstrated quality leadership, worthy of emulation in the creative industry.
Ukah stated that the Association was committed to reforms and strengthening of the copyright regime to address gaps in a bid to promote the economic interests of authors and advance the literary industry.
He expressed appreciation for the Commission’s proactive measures towards checking piracy, citing its recent timely intervention to curb the online piracy of books belonging to the literary icon, Prof. Wole Soyinka.
Ukah lauded the Commission’s long-standing cooperation that the Association has enjoyed, particularly during the reform of the copyright system and assured of its continued collaboration with NCC.
The ANA President further assured the Commission that the new executive would work closely with the NCC to promote copyright knowledge among authors and ensure that literary authors continued to use the copyright system optimally.
Representatives of the Commission and ANA were constituted into a working group to identify areas of immediate interest and facilitate collaboration.
Other newly elected ANA executives in attendance were Farida Mohammed, Vice President; Mark Ortserga, General Secretary; Freeman Okosun, Assistant General Secretary; Torlafia Benjamin Terhile, Legal Adviser; and Umar Yogizaj, Publicity Secretary, North.
E-Business
Domain of Deception as Attackers Deploy Spyware Under Guise of Legal Threats

Kaspersky has detected a rapidly escalating malicious campaign that has targeted over 1,100 corporate users since June 2025. The attackers pose as a legal firm and in their emails threaten recipients with lawsuits over alleged domain name patent violations, aiming to deploy malware.
Victims who opened and launched the attached files – that mimicked legal documents – had a Trojan installed on their devices, and the attackers could spy on the content of their screens. Organisations across healthcare, finance, and education sectors have been targeted.
The campaign began with 95 emails on June 11 and has since continued to escalate. Apart from claiming that the recipient’s domain name violates patented combinations of a major brand and threatening litigation, in the email the fake legal bureau also expresses the patent holders’ interest in acquiring the domain and offers getting acquainted with the details of the alleged violations by opening the attached archive with “documents”.
It is worth noting that the attackers, likely to avoid detection, attach an archive that is not password protected, and inside it includes another archive that is password protected and a file containing the password along with it.
After the user entered the archive password and clicked on the alleged legal document inside, a Trojan was installed on the device. The user saw a message displayed that read, “This document cannot be opened on this device. Try opening it on another windows device,” and simultaneously the Tor Browser was covertly downloaded and installed in the background.
Through it, the malware regularly sent snapshots of the user’s screen to the attackers over the Tor network. The malware also autostarts whenever the computer is restarted.
“This campaign is a sophisticated blend of psychological manipulation and technical deception, leveraging fear of legal action to coerce businesses into executing harmful files hidden in attached archives. Its rapid growth since June 11 underscores the urgency for organisations to bolster defenses.
Victims face the risk of losing their private data. Robust email security, employee training, and swift incident reporting are essential to counter this evolving threat,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, spam analyst at Kaspersky.
E-Business
Global Crypto Heists Surge to $2.1Bn in H1 2025 as Digital Assets is Weaponised

In a sobering revelation of the evolving threat landscape facing the digital asset ecosystem, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has disclosed that over $2.1 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the first half of 2025 alone, spanning at least 75 high-profile hacks and exploits.
This staggering figure marks a 10 per cent surge over the previous first-half record set in 2022 and nearly eclipses the total stolen in all of 2024.
But beyond the monetary scale, the report reveals a deeper concern: a growing trend of state-sponsored cyber aggression weaponising crypto assets for strategic and geopolitical purposes.
The most devastating breach to date occurred in February when Dubai-based exchange Bybit lost $1.5 billion—the largest crypto heist in history.
TRM Labs attributes the attack to North Korean state actors, noting that the incident alone accounted for nearly 70 percent of total losses during the period and doubled the average hack size to $30 million.
“The Bybit hack redefined the threat landscape,” the report stated.
“It exemplifies how digital asset theft has transcended criminal opportunism and morphed into a tool of statecraft.”
Indeed, North Korea-linked entities were responsible for an estimated $1.6 billion of the total stolen, further entrenching Pyongyang’s status as the most prolific nation-state threat actor in the crypto sphere.
Yet the menace is diversifying. On June 18, Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex was breached for over $90 million by a group reportedly linked to Israel, Gonjeshke Darande (Predatory Sparrow).
Unusually, the stolen funds were routed to unusable vanity addresses, underscoring symbolic and political motives rather than financial gain.
TRM Labs flagged this as a “disturbing shift,” with digital asset theft increasingly deployed as a weapon in asymmetric geopolitical conflict.
The report also found that more than 80 percent of losses stemmed from infrastructure breaches, including private key theft, seed phrase leaks, and front-end compromises— attacks typically ten times costlier than other vectors.
Meanwhile, DeFi exploits such as flash loan manipulations accounted for 12 percent of losses, reflecting persistent smart contract vulnerabilities despite years of scrutiny.
As digital currencies become enmeshed in global rivalries, TRM Labs warns that conventional cybersecurity approaches are now inadequate.
“Massive breaches, often tied to nation-state operations, require a new defence paradigm,” the firm asserted, urging industrywide adoption of advanced safeguards and cross-border collaboration among regulators and law enforcement.
E-Business
CAC Launches AI-powered Business Registration Portal

Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has inaugurated the pilot take-off of its new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered registration portal.
A statement issued by the commission explained that Malam Hussaini Magaji, registrar-general of the CAC, made the announcement during the 2025 Stakeholders Forum in Port Harcourt.
According to him, “the initiative is a major milestone in Nigeria’s business facilitation drive.”
The Registrar further explained that the upgraded portal marks a complete overhaul of the Company Registration Portal (CRP), saying that it comes with advanced features designed to simplify and speed up business registration.
The new system, according to him, allows for instant name reservation approvals, likening the ease to creating an email account, and stressing that the AI-powered platform could suggest available alternatives to business names and approve them immediately.
Another innovation, he stated, is the ability to register a business using only the National Identification Number (NIN) of a director or proprietor, pointing out that there is an ambitious target of completing business registration and certificate generation within 30 minutes, subject to real-time NIN validation.
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