Telecom
Sophos Launches Sophos X-Ops to Help Organizations Better Defend Against Complex Cyberattacks
Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, has announced Sophos X-Ops, a new cross-operational unit linking SophosLabs, Sophos SecOps and Sophos AI, three established teams of cybersecurity experts at Sophos, to help organizations better defend against constantly changing and increasingly complex cyberattacks.
Sophos X-Ops leverages the predictive, real-time, real-world, and deeply researched threat intelligence from each group, which, in turn, collaborate to deliver stronger, more innovative protection, detection and response capabilities.
Sophos today is also issuing “OODA: Sophos X-Ops Takes on Burgeoning SQL Server Attacks,” research about increased attacks against unpatched Microsoft SQL servers and how attackers used a fake downloading site and grey-market remote access tools to distribute multiple ransomware families.
Sophos X-Ops identified and thwarted the attacks because the Sophos X-Ops teams combined their respective knowledge of the incidents, jointly analyzed them, and took action to quickly contain and neutralize the adversaries.
“Modern cybersecurity is becoming a highly interactive team sport, and as the industry has matured, necessary analysis, engineering and investigative specializations have emerged. Scalable end-to-end operations now need to include software developers, automation engineers, malware analysts, reverse engineers, cloud infrastructure engineers, incident responders, data engineers and scientists, and numerous other experts, and they need an organizational structure that avoids silos,” said Joe Levy, chief technology and product officer, Sophos.
“We’ve unified three globally recognized and mature teams within Sophos to provide this breadth of critical, subject matter and process expertise.
“Joined together as Sophos X-Ops, they can leverage the strengths of each other, including analysis of worldwide telemetry from more than 500,000 customers, industry-leading threat hunting, response and remediation capabilities, and rigorous artificial intelligence to measurably improve threat detection and response.
“Attackers are often too organized and too advanced to combat without the unique combined expertise and operational efficiency of a joint task force like Sophos X-Ops.”
Speaking in March 2022 to the Detroit Economic Club about the FBI partnering with the private sector to counter the cyber threat, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “What partnership lets us do is hit our adversaries at every point, from the victims’ networks back all the way to the hackers’ own computers, because when it comes to the FBI’s cyber strategy, we know trying to stand in the goal and block shots isn’t going to get the job done.
“We’re disrupting three things: the threat actors, their infrastructure and their money. And we have the most durable impact when we work with all of our partners to disrupt all three together.” Sophos X-Ops is taking a similar approach: gathering and operating on threat intelligence from its own multidisciplinary groups to help stop attackers earlier, preventing or minimizing the harms of ransomware, espionage or other cybercrimes that can befall organizations of all types and sizes, and working with law enforcement to neutralize attacker infrastructure.
“While Sophos’ internal teams already share information as a matter of course, the formal creation of Sophos X-Ops drives forward a faster, more streamlined process necessary to counter equally fast-moving adversaries.
“Effective cybersecurity requires robust collaboration at all levels, both internally and externally; it is the only way to discover, analyze and counter malicious cyber actors at speed at scale.
“Combining these separate teams into Sophos X-Ops shows that Sophos understands this principle and is acting on it,” said Michael Daniel, president and CEO, Cyber Threat Alliance.
Sophos X-Ops also provides a stronger cross-operational foundation for innovation, an essential component of cybersecurity due to the aggressive advancements in organized cybercrime. By intertwining the expertise of each group, Sophos is pioneering the concept of an artificial intelligence (AI) assisted Security Operations Center (SOC), which anticipates the intentions of security analysts and provides relevant defensive actions.
In the SOC of the future, Sophos believes this approach will dramatically accelerate security workflows and the ability to more quickly detect and respond to novel and priority indicators of compromise.
“The adversary community has figured out how to work together to commoditize certain parts of attacks while simultaneously creating new ways to evade detection and taking advantage of weaknesses in any software to mass exploit it.
“The Sophos X-Ops umbrella is a noted example of stealing a page from the cyber miscreants’ tactics by allowing cross-collaboration amongst different internal threat intelligence groups,” said Craig Robinson, IDC research vice president, Security Services.
“Combining the ability to cut across a wide breadth of threat intelligence expertise with AI assisted features in the SOC allows organizations to better predict and prepare for imminent and future attacks.”
To learn more about Sophos X-Ops and its groundbreaking threat research, subscribe to the Sophos X-Ops blogs and follow Sophos X-Ops on Twitter.
Mafab Communications, a Nigerian telecommunications company that acquired a 5G license in 2021, is set to begin operations by the end of the first quarter of 2025, according to Adebayo Onigbanjo, chief operating officer of the company.
Onigbanjo who shared this update with TechCabal, this launch will mark the first time Mafab’s services will be available commercially, nearly three years after the company entered the 5G market.
The company plans to roll out its 5G services with 102 operational sites located in Kano and Abuja.
Subscribers will need to purchase routers to access the network. Mafab is also working with multiple vendors to develop these sites in phases as part of its strategy for deployment.
Mafab Communications obtained its 5G license on the same day as MTN.
However, while MTN launched its 5G services within eight months, Mafab, being a newer entrant, experienced delays in deploying its network due to insufficient telecom infrastructure.
These challenges were further exacerbated by the company’s delay in receiving its Unified Access Service License (UASL) and numbering plan, which was only granted in July 2022.
This situation led Mafab to seek an extension from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), postponing its initial rollout deadline to January 2023.
Following its launch event in January 2023, the company began promoting the sale of 5G routers on its website.
However, buyers quickly discovered that they could not activate the service, as uncovered by TechCabal.
Consequently, the sale of these routers has been suspended while the company focuses on completing its infrastructure buildout.
Despite the early stage of the 5G market in Nigeria, these delays have put Mafab at a disadvantage, leaving it to catch up with competitors like MTN and Airtel, particularly in Lagos, the country’s bustling commercial hub where most 5G subscribers are currently concentrated.
Although Mafab is actively working on its Lagos sites, the company has yet to announce when services will officially launch in the city.
According to Onigbanjo, foreign exchange (FX) fluctuations have posed a significant challenge, leading to higher rollout costs than initially projected—a difficulty faced by many telecom operators.
Since its commercial introduction in August 2022, Nigeria’s 5G market has experienced steady growth, spearheaded by MTN Nigeria.
By October 2024, 5G services accounted for 2.33% of the nation’s internet subscribers, with MTN Nigeria commanding a 79% market share and Airtel Africa holding roughly 20%.
Mafab’s anticipated rollout in Q1 is expected to further drive 5G adoption, particularly in cities beyond Lagos and Abuja.
The company has prioritized building robust infrastructure and extending its coverage in Kano and Abuja to support broader access to 5G services.
According to Onigbanjo, this includes developing a Radio Access Network (RAN), transport systems, and intelligent networks designed to connect various user devices—ranging from smartphones to IoT gadgets—to the company’s core telecom network.
Telecommunication companies in Nigeria are lobbying their regulator for permission to double price tariffs to weather harsh economic conditions and inflation running near a three-decade high.
“We’ve put forward requests of approximately a 100% increase” to the regulator, Karl Toriola, chief executive officer of MTN Nigeria Communications Plc, told Lagos-based Arise TV.
“There’s no way that the industry could continue to sustain itself and provide the required quality of service under the present structure,” he said.
The industry has been stepping up efforts for permission to relax pricing rules that have been in place for 11 years, amid surging annual inflation that touched 34.6% in November, and the steep depreciation of the naira against the dollar.
If the pricing issue is resolved, Toriola is optimistic 2025 will be a good year for operators.
The unit of MTN Group Ltd. plans to grow voice and data revenue this year by increasing coverage of rural areas as well as 5G broadband penetration, he said.
National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), a telecoms subscriber body, has warned Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) not accede to demands by telecommunications companies in the country to hike tariff, insisting that such increase would unleash further hardships on its members.
Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, president, NATCOMS said in statement that the group in a recent emergency meeting over the planned tariff hike of telecommunication services, unanimously voted against any tariff hike.
Ogunbanjo, said telecoms services are taxable services under the Value Added Tax Act.
The Act was amended in 2019 by the Finance Act of that year to raise the tax rate from five per cent to 7.5per cent which was 50per cent increment and the increment has been borne by the consumers of rateable telecom services.
“That increment brought about untold hardship to our members many of who have been forced to cut back on their telecom requirements.
“As if that was not bad enough, the Federal Government got the National Assembly to enact the Finance Act of 2020. Section 37 of the Act amended Section 21 of the Customs, Excise Tariff etc. (Consolidation) Act by imposing an excise duty charge on Telecommunication Services. The then president, President Muhammadu Buhari by an order prescribed five per cent as the rate of the excise duty charge, chargeable for telecommunication services. The additional tax burden was greeted with public outcry and this association, at the prompting of our members, challenged the excise duty charge in court, in the case of Registered Trustees of National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) V MTN Nigeria Communications Limited and Others – Suit No: FHC/L/ CS / 189) 2023 on the ground of double taxation which is illegal and unconstitutional.
NCC and other Federal Bodies are parties to the suit and the Federal Government as represented by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) entered an appearance and filed processes opposing the suit. The case is now pending before Hon. Justice Aluko, sitting at the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, and the case is slated to come up in the court on the 13th March, 2025,” Ogunbanjo said.
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