E-Business
IFC Venture Capital Supports Disruptive Technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has announced that it led the $8.6 million Series A equity investment in Africa’s Talking, a Kenyan based communication-platform-as-a-service (“cPAAS”) API startup, to enable the startup to expand its footprint across the continent. As part of the deal, Wale Ayeni, who leads IFC’s venture capital activities in Africa, will join the boardOther investors in the round include global venture capital funds Orange Digital Ventures and Social Capital. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals including from the Communications Authority of Kenya
Africa’s Talking’s cloud-based software platform virtualizes telco infrastructure across the continent, and provides unified access via its API (application programming interface) to a robust and growing community of more than 20,000 software developers in Africa currently serving over 1,000 fast-growing digital companies, enabling them to create real world applications faster and more efficiently.
Africa’s Talking’s scalable platform enables it to service both the one-man shop as well as larger enterprises — developers, startups, large companies — to embed messaging, voice, and video communications into their apps, allowing them to better connect with their mass market customers. From SMS services that help farmers improve crop yields to voice APIs that connect women to nearby family planning clinics, Africa’s Talking’s simple APIs enable businesses to build robust and value-additive digital products.
The company is headquartered in Kenya and recently expanded to Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Nigeria. Africa’s Talking aims to create a pan-African platform that enables developers across the continent to create, grow, and sustain strong businesses using their communication solutions.
“Africa’s Talking’s platform democratizes access to critical digital infrastructure that African start-ups and businesses need to scale,” said Oumar Seydi, IFC Director for sub Saharan Africa.
Nikunj Jinsi, IFC Global Head for Venture Capital, said: “IFC’s investment will help Africa’s Talking expand its integrated solution to new markets across Africa, filling a crucial gap and helping fuel the digital economy across the continent.”
“Africa’s Talking enables developers in Africa to transform their community through technology, and leveraging on IFC’s breadth of experience in Africa we will work together to catalyze our expansion and build innovative products. Together, we believe that we can build the foundation and environment that developers need to build successful African businesses,” said Samuel Gikandi, CEO and Co-Founder of Africa’s Talking.
IFC supports the mobile technology sector to help promote social inclusion and business growth. Over the past three years, IFC has invested over $1.5 billion in telecommunication, technology, and startup companies globally.
E-Business
NIMC Says NIN Services Back Online

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has announced the restoration of its National Identification Number (NIN) verification services nationwide.
This, according to the commission, follows the completion of a system maintenance exercise.
In a statement issued on Friday, the NIMC confirmed that all previously disrupted services have resumed.
“NIMC wishes to inform the general public that the recent technical maintenance has been completed and all services have been restored,” the statement read.
The NIMC urged Nigerians seeking to enroll for NIN to visit the its official website to locate the nearest enrollment centers.
The agency also encouraged individuals to make use of its self-service portal for tasks such as data modification, including name changes.
To further ease the verification process, the Commission recommended downloading the NIMC NameAuth app (oath.app) from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store for quick and secure NIN authentication.
NIMC expressed appreciation for the public’s patience during the service disruption, which had impacted banks, telecom providers, and government agencies that rely on NIN verification for their operations.
E-Business
Report Reveals African Organizations Dangerously Overestimating Cyber defences

Many businesses are overestimating their defence against cyber attacks, which creates a significant human risk blind spot. A new KnowBe4 report exposes a worrying disconnect between what leaders think about their cyber security readiness and what employees experience.
According to the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, based on insights from cyber security decision-makers across 30 African countries, despite high awareness, a critical gap exists in turning that awareness into actual readiness and resilient behaviour.
Key findings from the KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025:
Confidence vs awareness: While cyber security awareness is high, leaders express uncertainty about their workforce’s ability to act on that awareness. Many feel employees may overestimate their capabilities in recognising, reporting and mitigating threats.
The need for adaptive and personalised security awareness training: Many companies fail to personalise security awareness training to specific roles or risk exposures.
Widespread BYOD usage: A large percentage of employees (between 41% and 80%) use their personal devices for work.
AI policy development is lagging: Many companies (46%) are still in the process of developing policies for using AI tools in the workplace.
Regional variation: Southern Africa trains more, East Africa governs AI better and West/Central Africa sees the most human-related security incidents.
This gap is significant because Africa has become an attractive target to cyber criminals, especially those that launch AI-powered attacks. A LexisNexis Risk Solutions study found 60% of South African organisations have seen an increase in AI-facilitated financial crime – above the 56% global average.
Kehinde Popoola, regional manager and key representative for West and East Africa at Rubrik, said digital transformation is gaining momentum in Africa and companies are more exposed to cyber risk. The Rubrik executive adds that amid an increase in threats, it is crucial that organisations adopt an assumed breach mindset.
The KnowBe4 research shows that cyber security preparedness and the actual structures required to support secure behaviour seem misaligned.
The report highlights that just 10% of cyber security leaders are fully confident that staff would report a phishing attack or other cyber threat, despite rating employee security awareness of cyber threats at four out of five or higher.
There is also a significant perception gap between decision-makers and general employees in Africa regarding security awareness training, with 68% of leaders believing that training is tailored to roles, compared to only a third of employees feeling adequately trained.
KnowBe4 asserts that many organisations only conduct annual or biannual training that is too generic to effectively change behaviour, contributing to uncertainty about its effectiveness.
According to another report, the KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity and Awareness Report 2025, which focuses on end-user based responses, only 43% of African respondents felt confident in their ability to recognise a cyber threat, and just one in three believed their security awareness training was adequately tailored to their role. This comparison suggests the development of a dangerous perception gap in many organisations.
“There’s a disconnect here – between what leaders think is happening and what employees are actually experiencing,” says Anna Collard, SVP content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “The data shows that without procedural and cultural follow-through, awareness simply doesn’t translate into readiness.”
“The continent’s cyber security posture may be more confident than it is truly resilient,” Collard adds.
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.
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