E-Business
Jack Dorsey: Unpicking Twitter Boss’s Passion for Nigeria

By Nduka Orjinmo – BBC News
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is no stranger to controversy but in Nigeria he has become embroiled in the battle between the country’s tech-savvy youths and a ruling class that is seen to be out-of-touch with their thinking.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter Boss
His Twitter platform was used to galvanise support for last year’s #EndSars protests, which began as a movement against police brutality and morphed into a confrontation between the political class and Nigeria’s youth.
But Twitter is now blocked in the country after a recent tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari, 78, was deleted.
Many Nigerians adore Mr Dorsey. His ideals of open internet, freedom of expression and economic rights resonate with those who feel marginalised by their government.
Far from being intimidated by the Twitter ban, Mr Dorsey has kept tweeting about Nigeria and has captivated many here.
As the nation marked Democracy Day on 12 June and protests were held in different cities calling for a reversal of the block on Twitter, he tweeted the Nigerian flag with an emoji of a handshake and “#bitcoin”.
— jack (@jack) June 12, 2021
The next day he retweeted an article calling for the Nigerian government to pursue a Bitcoin standard, and quoted a tweet with the caption “the people of Nigeria will lead #bitcoin”.
Some analysts say this shows Mr Dorsey is a businessman looking after his interests.
While he is more famous as the CEO of Twitter, Mr Dorsey is also the founder of Square and Cash App, two payment processing platforms with interests in cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrencies targeted
Nigeria’s cryptocurrency market is the largest in Africa.
High inflation and a weak national currency has led millions to turn to digital currencies, which some see as safer and more reliable.
“There will always be room for products and solutions that help Nigerians save, invest and hedge in currencies other than in naira [the local currency],” said Faith Obafemi, a cryptocurrencies expert in Lagos.
She said there was space in the Nigeria cryptocurrencies market for services like trading that Mr Dorsey’s financial apps can provide.
However, Nigeria’s crypto-market is under regulation after the central bank placed restrictions in February.
Concerned by the growing adoption of digital currencies and what it saw as the harm it posed to the Nigerian economy, the government barred financial institutions from dealing in them.
But the regulation has had the opposite effect as investors have seen an increase in activity.
Much like the way people have got around the Twitter ban, there has been a surge in cryptocurrency transactions between individuals that bypass the financial institutions.
“When you look at the Twitter ban and you look at the cryptocurrency ban, it really draws from the same government-driven fear which is: ‘To what extent can we allow Nigerian youths to exercise freedom on the internet?’,” said Senator Ihenyen, head of Nigeria’s blockchain and cryptocurrencies association.
Mr Dorsey’s defenders argue that while he is advancing his business interests, he also appears to be genuinely interested in Nigeria – even though he overlooked it for Twitter’s Africa headquarters, preferring Ghana instead.
One-stop shop for everything
Mr Dorsey visited Lagos as part of his tour of Africa in November 2019, and a Nigerian, Uche Adegbite, is among the social media giant’s senior directors.
Nigeria’s former Finance Minister and current World Trade Organisation head, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had also previously served on Twitter’s board.
The founder of the Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Bosun Tijani, who met Mr Dorsey during his visit, said the Twitter CEO left with a strong belief that the platform was having a real impact in Nigeria.
“It’s a country that is typically hierarchical but Twitter is one of the platforms that gives opportunity for people, regardless of who you are, to have conversations that naturally in the Nigerian context you never get to have,” he said.
In fact, Twitter in Nigeria is more than a platform. It is a one-stop shop for everything – from job openings, to a missing persons portal, and a civic space to hold public officials to account.
It made its biggest political impact during last year’s #EndSars demonstrations, when it became the platform of choice for the young demonstrators. They succeeded in forcing the president to scrap the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), a notorious police unit that was known for its brutality.
However, the peaceful protests were then hijacked by thugs who damaged public buildings across Nigeria.
For that, the government says it holds Mr Dorsey “liable”, with some officials going as far as to accuse him of being part of a campaign to remove President Buhari from office.
Buhari’s controversial tweet
Information Minister Lai Mohammed has alleged that Mr Dorsey raised funds through Bitcoin to sponsor one of the protest groups , and Twitter – which created a special emoji in support of the demonstrations – was used to stoke the crisis. Mr Dorsey has not commented on the allegations.
Relations hit a new low last month when the government blocked Twitter, alleging that the micro-blogging site was being used to undermine “Nigeria’s corporate existence” through the spreading of fake news that had “violent consequences”.
This came after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Buhari about the security issues in south-east Nigeria. He said “those misbehaving today” would be dealt with in “the language they will understand”.
The president faced a massive backlash from users who saw this as a threat of violence. As a result Twitter accused accusing Mr Buhari of violating its rules and removed the tweet.
The government was furious and accused Twitter of double standards. It highlighted messages by Nnamdi Kanu, the exiled leader of a banned group calling for secession from Nigeria, which it argued encouraged the killing of police officers.
Those tweets were subsequently deleted by Twitter.
The Twitter founder has largely stayed out of politics in other African countries, fuelling suspicion among his critics that he not only has a business interest in Nigeria, but also a political interest.
But Mr Tijani simply sees Mr Dorsey as representing a new breed of CEOs.
“He’s not the generation of Bill Gates. He’s part of the generation that doesn’t rely on the government,” he said.
Moreover, Nigeria’s youth are using his invention to push for political and economic change, worrying a government that does not have a good grasp of technology.
“[Government leaders] are beginning to see that this technology can be used to challenge them in ways that people have never been able to challenge them,” Mr Tijani added.
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E-Business
Firm Highlights Top Risks of Quantum Computing

Kaspersky is addressing one of the most debatable technological challenges of the coming decade: the rise of quantum computing and its potential impact on digital security.
In this context, experts have identified the main quantum threats that demand immediate action from the cybersecurity community.
As classical computers approach their physical limits, their performance growth is slowing — constraining progress in areas that depend on complex computation.
At the same time, quantum computers offer the potential to solve specific problems far faster than classical systems. For now, however, their practical use remains limited to narrow and experimental domains.
Nevertheless, experts estimate that we may see a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer within the next decade — a development that could unlock significant advances, but also unleash a new era of cybersecurity threats.
Supporting this urgency, Deloitte’s 2024 Global Future of Cyber Survey reports that 83% of organizations are already assessing or taking steps to address quantum computing risks, demonstrating growing awareness and proactive strategies in the private sector.
To better understand the scope of the evolving threat, Kaspersky has identified three of the most urgent quantum-related risks that demand action from the cybersecurity community:
The top three risks:
Quantum computers could be used to compromise the traditional encryption methods that currently protect data in countless digital systems — posing a direct threat to global cybersecurity infrastructures.
Threats include the interception and decoding of sensitive diplomatic, military, and financial communications, as well as the real-time decryption of private negotiations – something quantum systems could handle much faster than classical machines, turning secure conversations into open books.
- Store now, decrypt later: the key threat of the coming years
Threat actors are already harvesting encrypted data today, with the intention of decrypting it in the future once quantum capabilities advance. This “store now, decrypt later” tactic could expose sensitive information years after it was originally transmitted — including diplomatic exchanges, financial transactions, and private communications.
- Sabotage in blockchain and cryptocurrency
Blockchain networks are not immune to quantum threats. Bitcoin’s Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), which relies on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), is especially vulnerable.
Potential risks include forging digital signatures, which threatens Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies; attacks on ECDSA that secure crypto wallets; and tampering with blockchain transaction history, undermining trust and integrity.
- Quantum-resistant ransomware: a new front
Looking ahead, developers and operators of advanced ransomware may begin adopting post-quantum cryptography to protect their own malicious payloads. So-called “quantum-resistant” ransomware would be designed to resist decryption by both classical and quantum computers — potentially making recovery without paying a ransom nearly impossible.
At present, quantum computing does not offer a way to decrypt files locked by current ransomware. Data protection and recovery still rely on traditional security solutions and collaboration among law enforcement agencies, quantum researchers, and international organisations.
Building quantum-safe defenses
Quantum computers are not yet a direct threat — but by the time they are, it may be too late to respond. Transitioning to post-quantum cryptography will take years. Preparations must begin today.
The cybersecurity community, IT companies, and governments must coordinate to address the risks ahead. Policymakers should develop clear strategies to migrate to post-quantum algorithms. Businesses and researchers need to begin implementing new security standards now.
“The most critical risk lies not really in the future, but in the present: encrypted data with long-term value is already at risk from future decryption. The security decisions we make today will define the resilience of our digital infrastructure for decades.
“Governments, businesses, and infrastructure providers must begin adapting now, or risk systemic vulnerabilities that cannot be retroactively fixed,” states Sergey Lozhkin, Head of Kaspersky Global Research & Analysis Team for META and APAC.
E-Business
AI Slows Down some Experienced Software Developers, Study Finds

Contrary to popular belief, using cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools slowed down experienced software developers when they were working in codebases familiar to them, rather than supercharging their work, a new study found.
AI research nonprofit METR conducted the in-depth study, on a group of seasoned developers earlier this year while they used Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, to help them complete tasks in open-source projects they were familiar with.
Before the study, the open-source developers believed using AI would speed them up, estimating it would decrease task completion time by 24%. Even after completing the tasks with AI, the developers believed that they had decreased task times by 20%. But the study found that using AI did the opposite: it increased task completion time by 19%.
The study’s lead authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, said they were shocked by the results: prior to the study, Rush had written down that he expected “a 2x speed up, somewhat obviously.”
The findings challenge the belief that AI always makes expensive human engineers much more productive, a factor that has attracted substantial investment into companies selling AI products to aid software development.
AI is also expected to replace entry-level coding positions. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs in the next one to five years.
Prior literature on productivity improvements has found significant gains: one study found using AI sped up coders by 56%, another study found developers were able to complete 26% more tasks in a given time.
But the new METR study shows that those gains don’t apply to all software development scenarios. In particular, this study showed that experienced developers intimately familiar with the quirks and requirements of large, established open source codebases experienced a slowdown.
Other studies often rely on software development benchmarks for AI, which sometimes misrepresent real-world tasks, the study’s authors said.
The slowdown stemmed from developers needing to spend time going over and correcting what the AI models suggested.
“When we watched the videos, we found that the AIs made some suggestions about their work, and the suggestions were often directionally correct, but not exactly what’s needed,” Becker said.
The authors cautioned that they do not expect the slowdown to apply in other scenarios, such as for junior engineers or engineers working in codebases they aren’t familiar with.
Still, the majority of the study’s participants, as well as the study’s authors, continue to use Cursor today.
The authors believe it is because AI makes the development experience easier, and in turn, more pleasant, akin to editing an essay instead of staring at a blank page.
“Developers have goals other than completing the task as soon as possible,” Becker said. “So they’re going with this less effortful route.”
E-Business
Firm Uncovers $500K Crypto Heist Through Malicious Packages

Kaspersky GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team) experts have discovered open-source packages that download the Quasar backdoor and a stealer designed to exfiltrate cryptocurrency. The malicious packages are intended for the Cursor AI development environment, which is based on Visual Studio Code — a tool used for AI-assisted coding.
The malicious open-source packages are extensions hosted in the Open VSX repository that claim to provide support for the Solidity programming language. However, in practice, they download and execute malicious code on users’ devices.
During an incident response, a blockchain developer from Russia reached out to Kaspersky after installing one of these fake extensions on his computer, which allowed attackers to steal approximately $500,000 worth of crypto assets.
The threat actor behind these packages managed to deceive the developer by making the malicious package rank higher than the legitimate one. The attacker achieved this by artificially inflating the malicious package’s downloads count to 54,000.
After installation, the victim gained no actual functionality from the extension. Instead, malicious ScreenConnect software was installed on the computer, granting threat actors remote access to the infected device.
Using this access, they deployed the open-source Quasar backdoor along with a stealer that collects data from browsers, email clients, and crypto wallets. With these tools, the threat actors were able to obtain the developer’s wallet seed phrases and subsequently steal cryptocurrency from the accounts.
After the malicious extension downloaded by the developer was discovered and removed from the repository, the threat actor republished it and artificially inflated its installation count to a higher number – 2 million, compared to 61,000 for the legitimate package. The extension was removed from the platform following a request from Kaspersky.
“Spotting compromised open-source packages with the naked eye is becoming increasingly difficult. Threat actors are using increasingly creative tactics to deceive potential victims, even developers who have a strong understanding of cybersecurity risks — particularly those working in the blockchain development field.
As we expect adversaries to continue targeting developers, it is recommended that even experienced IT professionals deploy dedicated security solutions to safeguard sensitive data and prevent financial losses,” commented Georgy Kucherin, Security Researcher with Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
The threat actor behind the attack published not only malicious Solidity extensions but also another NPM package, solsafe, which also downloads ScreenConnect. A few months earlier, three additional malicious Visual Studio Code extensions were released — solaibot, among-eth, and blankebesxstnion — all of them have already been removed from the repository.
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