E-Business
Nigeria Lags in Internet Speed, Sits at 107th Position
Telecommunications operators providing mobile broadband services in the country are focusing much on penetration without efforts on speed of broadband evident in Nigeria’s lag in broadband speed report.
Broadband is associated with speed as against narrow band. The neglect of speed aspect of broadband provision has resulted in the country occupying 107th position globally and ninth in Africa in Speedtest Global Index report for 2018.
The report puts Nigeria’s mobile broadband download speed at 12.76 Mbps with South Africa emerging first in Africa having average download speed of 18.31Mbps. This is, however, the fastest out of the African countries listed, with the next fastest being Kenya at 14.42Mbps and then Mauritius at 14.12Mbps.
Responding, Sunday Folayan, managing director, General data Engineering Services (SKANNET) as well as president, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), said that speed and penetration are complementary.
“Penetration leads to higher demand and justification for investments by the providers. More penetration leads to more demand for higher speed, which ultimately improves the access density.
“There is abundant access at the landing points, but evacuation to the hinterland, last mile distribution, quality of service and lower costs remains major challenges for us.
He urged governments to continue to remove barriers, create appropriate use-case, and drive inclusion.
“Today, Nigerians complete the purchase of JAMB and WAEC forms online. It will be good if FIRS, immigration and other essential government services are procured online. It will drive the adoption of broadband”.
On the determination of speed of internet, he said: “The forces of demand and supply will ultimately force speed, if limitations such as spectrum are removed, and there is the proliferation of Fiber to the home and fiber to everywhere.
“Much more, the ability to domesticate our Nollywood industry and making their movies available for viewing in Nigeria; We are ripe for a Netflix like local service that will then ramp up the pent-up demand for broadband speed in Nigeria”.
Muhammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, said that, Internet speed is very important, but penetration is fundamental to the development of any society. “As you know most countries focus on the penetration initially then raise the benchmark speed as more people have access at the basic level.
“This is because even with low speed internet access citizens can participate in the global internet arena – voice their opinions through social media platforms, access to educational content, online banking, emails and all other critical services. While access to high speed internet access opens more doors, such as high quality video content for both education and entertainment, video conferencing, e-health, online gaming and much more.
“The report indicates that both operators and regulators need to do more, especially through constant engagement and collaboration. There is serious need for government to work with the industry towards addressing operator’s needs so as to fast-track deployment of the needed infrastructure for broadband deployment.
“While at the same time there is urgent need for collaboration between operators towards infrastructure and asset sharing – This would hasten broadband penetrations and ensure business sustainability,” he said.
The slowest average downloads were found in Tunisia with 7.69Mbps, Egypt with 6.74Mbps and Algeria, where the speed is just 3.75Mbps.
Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) experts at the 10th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2025 held recently, talked about supply chain attacks and reported that by the end of 2024 a total of 14,000 malicious packages were found in open-source projects, a 48% increase compared to the end of 2023. 42 million versions of open-source packages have been examined by Kaspersky throughout 2024 in search for vulnerabilities.
Open-source is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. Popular open-source packages include GoMod, Maven, NuGet, npm, PyPI, and others.
These are tools that power countless applications and help developers easily find, install, and manage pre-built code libraries, making it simpler to build software by reusing code others have written. Attackers take advantage of the popularity of these and other packages.
In March 2025, the Lazarus Group was reported to have deployed several malicious npm packages, which were downloaded multiple times before removal. These packages contained malware to steal credentials, cryptocurrency wallet data, and deploy backdoors, targeting developers’ systems across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The attack leveraged GitHub repositories for added legitimacy, highlighting the group’s sophisticated supply chain tactics. Kaspersky’s GReAT also found other npm packages related to this attack. Malicious npm packages could have been integrated into web development, cryptocurrency platforms, and enterprise software, risking widespread data theft and financial losses.
In 2024, a sophisticated backdoor was discovered in XZ Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, a widely used compression library in Linux distributions. Inserted by a trusted contributor, the malicious code targeted SSH servers, enabling remote command execution and threatening countless systems globally.
Detected before widespread exploitation due to performance anomalies, the incident highlighted the dangers of supply chain attacks. XZ Utils is integral to operating systems, cloud servers, and IoT devices, making its compromise a threat to critical infrastructure and enterprise networks.
In 2024, Kaspersky’s GReAT discovered that attackers uploaded malicious Python packages like chatgpt-python and chatgpt-wrapper to PyPI, mimicking legitimate tools for interacting with ChatGPT APIs.
These packages, designed to steal credentials and deploy backdoors, capitalised on the popularity of AI development to trick developers into downloading them. These packages could have been used in AI development, chatbot integrations, and data analytics platforms, endangering sensitive AI workflows and user data.
“Open-source software is the backbone of many modern solutions, but its openness is being weaponised. The 50% rise in malicious packages by the end of 2024 shows attackers are actively embedding sophisticated backdoors and data stealers in popular packages, which millions rely on.
“Without rigorous vetting and real-time monitoring, a single compromised package can trigger a global breach. Organisations need to secure the supply chain before the next XZ Utils-level attack succeeds,” comments Dmitry Galov, Head of Research Center for Russia and CIS at Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.
Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.
“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.
Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.
“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin
The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.
Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.
“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin
Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.
To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.
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