E-Business
Microsoft Builds Media Capacity on Office 365, Windows 8.1
Microsoft Nigeria exposed journalists to benefits of Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Windows 8.1 at a one-day capacity building training for the Nigeria IT media.
The training was held by Microsoft in conjunction with its Gold certified partner, Ha-Shem Network Services Limited, also known for its world class IT solutions and training.
Office 365 is a major offering within Office 2013 which is the next iteration of Microsoft’s flagship office product line for customers and is designed to work with both touch and a mouse, and works seamlessly in the cloud, giving the user an unmatched on- and offline experience.
A cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities, the Office 365 Home Premium includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling.
Microsoft Windows 8.1 brings significant advantages to those who are upgrading existing PCs or purchasing new ones and comes with a new look. The operating system offers improvements in performance and existing capabilities.
To address challenges of weak technology reporting in the African media which is unstructured and shallow, and to bridge journalists’ reporting skills gap, Microsoft aims to provide local journalists with the tools they require to enable them report confidently on ICT issues, use technology properly in their day-to-day activities and create an affinity to the Microsoft brand and its solutions and services.
More than 20 journalists drawn from major media houses in Nigeria participated in the capacity building workshop.
Explaining motivation for the programme, Yemi Orimolade, PR Lead for Microsoft Anglophone West Africa said, “As a technology enabler, we believe IT capacity building contributes significantly to economic empowerment, growth and development, and will offer the appropriate skills to the media to use technology in innovative ways”.
Professor Lai Oso, Dean School of Communications at the Lagos State University , Lagos gave a keynote address on Bridging the gap between Technology & News Reporting.
According to him, audiences have moved away from being consumers of news to news producers as a result of latest trends in the technological landscape. Journalism in turn has moved away from the way it used to be and there is hardly any traditional media without an online version.
“Migration from the offline environment to the online has made it important to always update stories. New technologies create challenges and opportunities and yesterday’s skills and technology are fast becoming obsolete,” he said.
The workshop course content included Big data, One note, Antipiracy, Social media, Understanding Cloud Computing and Windows 8 & Office 365 experience.
The session on big data was facilitated by the duo of Marcus Stephens and Craig Corte of Kagiso Media. Marcus spoke on how data can be applied from a technological perspective for depth, frequency and reach.
“Though technology may change the way we communicate, it will not change the essence of communication,” Stephens submitted.
The session on Microsoft One Note was taken by Azubuike Nwajagu, IT Manager, Microsoft West East and Central Africa & Indian Ocean Islands. He said “Microsoft One Note is an effective tool for recording, collating and sharing notes. OneNote is particularly advantageous to journalists as it enables audio and video recording which is useful for recording interviews. The tool also enables interview transcription and allows for sharing of notes via email’.
The antipiracy session taken by Temofe Ugbona, Antipiracy Conversion manager, Microsoft Nigeria was a very interactive one, where he stressed that piracy is a problem of the whole world, not just Nigeria and is projected to be worth $7.4b by 2014.”
“Social media has become increasingly popular with the growth of social networking as a channel of communication. The use of blog posts and social networking sites have become major media for sharing information, videos and pictures. There are over two million Nigerians on Facebook and YouTube has been rated the second largest search engine in the world,” said Kendra Nnachi who facilitated the session on social media.
Yomi Alarape anchored the session on cloud computing, where he gave insights on datacenter evolution through the traditional, virtualization, private cloud and public could, while the Windows 8.1 and Office 365 experience session facilitated by Bamikole Ajayi, where participants were able to touch, feel, play and have hands-on experience with devices operating on the Windows 8.1 platform.
Giving his thoughts on the training, Abiodun Ogunjobi, Head Marketing, Ha-Shem Network Services Limited said, “We are excited to partner with Microsoft on this maiden edition of the journalist capacity building training project for the Nigerian media. The benefits of IT education cannot be overemphasized and we feel this is a good way to positively impact their reporting to be at par with the advanced world journalism.”
Participating journalists commended the continuous efforts of Microsoft and Ha-Shem Network Services Limited at encouraging technology penetration as well as personal growth of their partners.
Adeyemi Adepetun of The Guardian Newspaper speaking on behalf of the journalists said, “We thank Microsoft for this opportunity. It has been a very enlightening experience. We now have better understanding of Microsoft software packages and the opportunities that exist in online and social media as effective communication channels. IT skills are certainly a prerequisite for future achievement”.
Participants came from various media houses such as Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, The Punch Newspapers, The Guardian Newspaper, ThisDay Newspaper, Champion Newspapers, BusinessDay Newspaper, National Mirror, The Sun and Vanguard Newspapers amongst others.
Certificates of participation were given to all the journalists at the end of the one-day workshop.
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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