As the world grapples with economic development and humanitarian challenges, one company has been leading with tech solutions that focus on implementing next generation digital identity systems to assist nations navigate the challenges.

In today’s globalised world, a country’s identity system has, without a doubt, taken a pivotal role in the nation’s continued sovereign existence and as a result the identity system has become one of the most significant and therefore valued national infrastructures of a nation.

Whether for security, humanitarian action, for national economic planning or for international networking in the comity of nations, the identity system of a country has become the yardstick on which to tell a nation’s focus on development and humanitarian policies.

While a robust identity ecosystem has been recognised as a key backbone upon which a country springs to socio-economic development, the United Nations describes legal identity as the basic characteristics of an individual’s identity such as name, sex, place and date of birth conferred through registration and the issuance of a certificate by an authorised civil registration authority following the occurrence of birth.

As nations look to implement digital identity systems in line with global best practices, therefore, there are quite a few unique organisations offering technologies and solutions that assist countries to establish robust digital identity ecosystems.

One of these organisations in a small league of unique companies whose solutions are enabling the implementation of digital identity ecosystems for countries across the world is UrbanID.

Nigeria is renowned for producing technology specialists whose tech feats lead the way and break new grounds. So, just as Philip Emeagwali, is reputed as the inventor of the world’s fastest computer, the brain behind UrbanID, which offers tech solutions that are shaping digital identity ecosystems globally is Nigerian-born Olatunji Durodola, who, for nearly three decades has made unmatched contributions to the tech industry yet with little noise about his contributions.

UrbanID’s global presence is testament to the versatility and robustness of its technology solutions. Founded nearly three decades ago, and operating out of the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, UrbanID has proven time and again with proof of concept that became reality that the identity of individuals can be managed in a secure, safe and yet easily accessible environment by governments or other stakeholders when necessary.

UrbanID wears its trademark in such a manner that builds and reinforces trust and confidence, and this it has exemplified with its state-of-the-art suites of technology services delivery to very high profile clients, particularly countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa in the last 25 years.

To underscore its vision and commitment to delivering unmatched digital identity solutions for developing countries, UrbanID, which made the most impressive presence and display of products at the ID4Africa 2024 conference and exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, declared at the event:

“UrbanID is proud to present state-of-the-art digital identity solutions and products for the developing world, with specific emphasis on Africa and South-East Asia, focusing on their unique identity management challenges.

In a world where a person’s identity needs to be secure, trusted and protected, UrbanID comes with over 30 years of experience in the mobile landscape and bears a passion for solving problems that only Africans know best to resolve. You can count on us to always have a listening ear, be prepared to respect local cultures and norms, as well as local fiat currencies.”

With its footprints well established both directly and through a couple of subsidiaries in countries like the UAE, the UK, Nigeria, Estonia, Rwanda and still counting, UrbanID prides itself as an IT company with a difference, which offers a wide range of exceptional services that cut across various sectors thereby enabling the global economy. Over the years, the company has committed itself to providing guaranteed world-class digital identity solutions in a disruptive yet highly efficient manner.

It asserts with boldness that, “We are building the technology infrastructure of a robust and disruptive Digital Identity ecosystem for the world across borders with mutual recognition, while offering solutions that are crafted in strict compliance with our mission to empower individuals, strengthen communities, and foster inclusive citizenship services through a secure and innovative digital identity ecosystem.”

In a world where identity theft and protection of data are subjects of immense and intense debates and concern to nations, institutions, security agencies, the financial industry and corporates globally; UrbanID has set for itself the onerous task to ensure that its clients adopt “digitalisation as a process which eliminates the social barriers that prevent complete individual growth and equal participation of all citizens in a country’s political, economic and social structures,” says Mr. Durodola, founder of UrbanID.

Consequently, building technology infrastructures with robust and disruptive Digital Identity ecosystem for the world across borders with mutual recognition, in the thinking of UrbanID, is a bouquet that include:

Identity Management

In nearly three decades of outstanding tech solutions experience, the company has paved the way as a leading provider of most secure and robust identity management solutions to governments, large enterprises and non-profit organisations across regions of the world.

Identity Tokenisation

UrbanID is celebrated for spearheading and creating the unique tokenization tech solution which provides one-of-its kind service that strengthens and enhances the security of end-user data protection and protects personally identifiable information (PII).

Public Key Infrastructure

Perhaps in one area where the company has impacted identity management across emerging economies most is in providing services and expertise in public key infrastructure (PKI) that assist governments secure their information systems, databases and operations. Eliminating the phenomenon of ghost has stood out UrbanID thus endearing it to governments at both national and sub-national levels.

User Consent Management

Complementary to tackling the issue of ghost workers and other leakages in organisations is the important component of its identity management system suite. UrbanID equally prides itself as a User Content Management service provider; and, it offers a wide range of ID verification products, along with user content management services for government-issued IDs.

These complex and highly technology-driven suites of ID solutions offered by UrbanID are a sure proof of the tenacity of its founding, a proof of one man’s resilience and years of total commitment to the promotion of best practices in ICT focused on assisting governments secure their most prized asset: the citizens’ identity records and databases. Speaking on why the company places great emphasis on user consent for personal information especially for Africans, Mr. Durodola said:

“The identity of a Nigerian or any African, for that matter, is no less important than that of a European. Enterprises are therefore encouraged to value citizens’ personal information higher than bundles of money in a bank account.

“Our world-class disruptive technology seeks to simplify the process (yet retain the integrity) of the importance of ensuring that any verification entity obtains an ID holder’s explicit Consent to verify their identity, with immutable proof of such an approval and what was done.

“We emphasise that simply signing a piece of paper “I approve” or clicking on a button “I consent” falls way below any set industry standards for a full value chain of who did what, when and from where, with a citizen’s personal information, and, this is what UrbanID is about: Zero Knowledge Proof,” Mr. Durodola stressed.

UrbanID is synonymous with the life-long journey in the world of IT of the highly talented Nigerian, Olatunji Durodola who also founded the company’s subsidiary, CommonIdentity Ltd in Nigeria in 2017 with a clear mandate to serve as an Identity Management Consulting and Software Development firm.

In the inner recesses of Olatunji’s mind when he established CommonIdentity, was to assist governments especially in developing economies to scale up and catch up with the advanced economies in identity management. Thus, his company is focused on Digital Identity Solutions for Governments of developing nations with Nigeria as the starting point.

With growth and the need to reach the larger world, in 2021, CommonIdentity Ltd was acquired by UrbanID Global and it currently controls 51 per cent equity stake in the new company. Part of the outcome of the acquisition was to restructure and focus on consumer based Identity Solutions.

This narrative was based on the earlier accomplishment of having developed Africa’s first and only MobileID ecosystem with around 20 million downloads, and still counting.

Today, another UrbanID subsidiary is a Nigerian outfit called TruID Ltd with focus on Enterprise-based Identity Management solutions. UrbanID holds another 51 per cent stake in this start-up.

Ever eager to exceed clients’ expectations, Durodola speaks of UrbanID’s commitment and mission-critical focus: “Our Patented Tokenisation Technology is being used in the largest Identity Database in Africa, to provide enhanced data protection and privacy to all ID holders. Our passion is to reduce the proliferation of personal data in so many disparate and insecure databases in developing economies.

“To insure this, we use state-of-the-art hardware, hand-picked and custom-built by our engineers and computer scientists, who have decades of experience in Enhanced Data Privacy, development of open standards, hardware and bespoke software development solutions.

“From the Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), to the high-performance CPUs, to the highly secure Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), to our optimised custom Linux Kernel, we are very proud of our work to put the developing world in particular at the pinnacle of innovation and creativity.”

Durodola’s towering accomplishments in developing some of the globally renowned IT solutions leading some of today’s Identity Solutions in various countries through his companies are making the difference in the identity management systems in several countries including Nigeria.

His ingenuity in the tech space has some foundations worth mentioning. As far back as the 1980s, Olatunji Durodola developed the world’s first mobile version of the London Underground Tube Map for the Psion Organiser II.

He also collaborated with W & R Chambers to develop the first electronic version of the Official Scrabble Word Dictionary. Similarly, Durodola participated in developing Palmtop work for the Hewlett-Packard Company, in Portland, Oregon, USA. And since 2012, he has been involved in creating some of the most outstanding Identity products for the Nigerian government.

It is not a surprise that Urban ID is a critical success factor in the development of Africa’s best, largest and unarguably, most reliable identity management systems.

Assisting the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), and seeing the monumental gains the Nigerian state has made in enrolling over 120 million citizens with National Identification Number (NIN), as well as designing the most recent Polycarbonate Card, which manages a robust, easy to use Mobile Digital ID Card are some of Durodola’s accomplishments even as he continues to innovate with a mind-set to evolve and create new tech solutions in the global digital identity space.

Google, Facebook, and Amazon are the most frequently targeted brands when it comes to phishing attacks, according to Kaspersky’s recent research among 25 popular global companies. Cybercriminals also heavily pursue the credentials and data of other brands, with the number of attacks increasing nearly 1.5 times year-on-year.

Kaspersky analysed a sample of 25 names from the Best Global Brands 2023 rating by Interbrand for phishing exploitation. In the first half of 2024, people around the world tried to access fake resources impersonating these brands nearly 26 million times, nearly 40 percent more frequently than in January-June 2023.

Kaspersky experts attribute this sharp rise to an increase in fraudulent activity rather than a decline in user vigilance: cybercriminals are becoming more aggressive in their pursuit of users’ data and money.

Among the brands studied, cybercriminals primarily targeted Google services in their attempts to steal credentials, such as usernames and passwords. Kaspersky solutions blocked over 4 million attempts worldwide to access phishing websites designed to trick users into providing their Google account information.

Following Google, there were around 3.7 million attempts on Facebook users, while Amazon ranked third with approximately 3 million. Microsoft and DHL rounded out the top five with 2.8 million and 2.6 million attempts, respectively. PayPal, Mastercard, Apple, Netflix, and Instagram turned out to be among the top 10 brands targeted by cybercriminals for credentials and money in 2024.

Some brands turned out to be increasingly targeted in phishing attack attempts compared to last year. Phishing for Google has more than tripled, demonstrating 243 percent growth in the first half of 2024 compared to last year. Mastercard has seen a 210 percent rise in attempts to steal sensitive data and money, followed by Facebook and Netflix, both of which experienced a doubling of attack attempts.

“This year has seen a significant increase in phishing attempts targeting Google. If a phisher gains access to a Gmail account, they can potentially access multiple services, making it a prime target.

“Phishing for Mastercard, typically aimed at stealing money, has likely risen alongside the proliferation of fake online shops pretending to sell goods and offering checkout options with allegedly Mastercard,” says Olga Svistunova, a security expert at Kaspersky. “Interestingly, Microsoft experienced a decline in clicks on phishing resources.

“Since this brand is frequently targeted for corporate credentials phishing, the decrease may be attributed to improved cyber literacy in various organisations. DHL has also seen a decline, which is a common trend among several transport and logistics brands we analysed.”

Other brands that didn’t make it into the top 10, but have become increasingly targeted include HSBC, which experienced an eight-fold rise to 240,000 phishing attempts in 2024, and eBay, which saw a three-fold increase to more than 300,000 attacks. Airbnb, American Express, and LinkedIn recorded increases of 174%, 137%, and 122% in attempts, respectively.

Attackers are increasingly targeting Windows by exploiting vulnerable drivers, according to Kaspersky experts. In the second quarter of 2024, the number of systems attacked using this technique increased by nearly 23% compared to the first quarter.

Vulnerable drivers may be exploited for a wide range of attacks, including ransomware and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

Cyberattacks that utilise vulnerable drivers are known as BYOVD (Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver). They allow threat actors to attempt to disable security solutions on a system and escalate privileges, enabling them to carry out various malicious activities, such as installing ransomware or establishing persistence for espionage or sabotage, particularly if an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group is behind the attack.

Kaspersky reports that this attack technique accelerated in 2023 and is currently gaining momentum, with a potential impact on both individuals and organisations. In Q2 2024, the number of systems attacked with the BYOVD technique increased by almost 23% compared to the previous quarter.

“While the drivers themselves are legitimate, they may contain vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can then be exploited for malicious purposes. Perpetrators use various tools and methods to install a vulnerable driver on the system.

“Once the operating system loads this driver, the attacker can exploit it to circumvent OS kernel security boundaries for their own goals,” explains Vladimir Kuskov, Head of Anti-Malware Research at Kaspersky.

One concerning aspect of this trend is the proliferation of tools that exploit vulnerable drivers – they can be found online. While relatively few of these tools exist in 2024 – only 24 projects have been published since 2021– Kaspersky experts observed an increase in the number of these tools being published online last year.

“Although nothing really stops threat actors from developing their own private tools, the publicly available ones eliminate the need for the specific skills required to research and exploit vulnerable drivers.

“In 2023 alone, we identified approximately 16 new tools of this nature, marking a substantial increase from the mere one or two we observed in previous years. Given this rise, it is highly advisable to implement robust protective measures for any system”, elaborates Kuskov.