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E-Business

The Unified Insuree Experience Advantage is Key for Insurers to Scale into New Markets

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By Dorotea Vatavuk

With customers rapidly adopting digital communication channels that offer quick, simple and convenient processes, digitalisation of the entire insurance process is unavoidable. In fact, digital transformation for the insurance industry is no longer an option, but a necessity.

Traditional processes are increasingly becoming frustrating for the modern customer, who is realising that there are better and easier ways to do things. These are trends that those customers are seeing across other industries and expect their insurers to deliver similar digitalised processes that enhance the customer experience.

For the most part, we are seeing a serious underutilisation of digital channels in the insurance sector. While some insurance companies are trying to keep up with the needs of the modern customer by using digital channels, such as SMS and email, most are still relying on traditional platforms for their business-critical processes.

So, in reality, many insurers are adding digital channels to their traditional ones, but are not using them in a way that leads to the optimisation of their business processes.

This results in complex onboarding and policy renewal procedures that are tiring for both clients and staff. This, alongside an overall process that still relies on traditional engagement methods such as telephone or face-to-face communication and even the physical printing and posting of documents.

Omnichannel strategy

The modern customer looking for cover and insurance companies must realise that adopting an omnichannel communication strategy is the key ingredient to delivering a superior insuree experience. There is a need to offer support over multiple communication channels, and insurance companies need to ensure that they have the right channels for different customer segments.

Starting with onboarding – where insurance companies make their first impression – the modern customer expects a simple and hassle-free process. Once the client is onboarded, the insurer should focus on client retention, keeping in mind their own profitability.

However, we are still observing a lack of pro-active support and a lot of missed opportunities, mainly due to insurers’ inability to personalise engagement. Another challenge is that without rich data, insurance companies are unable to provide the most suitable products for their customers along the different steps of their lifecycle. This means a direct loss of business that was actually within the insurer’s reach.

An omnichannel communication strategy will give insurers the ‘Unified Insuree Experience’ advantage, so it is key for businesses to automate their processes to serve their customers better and faster. In return, companies will save on resources, time and money. While this might sound contradictory, it is actually quite achievable.

Insurance businesses can streamline their processes and provide their clients with a superior level of service, while reducing costs at the same time. Similarly, it is possible to scale customer engagement and experience by, for example, making e-policy delivery faster and more secure, while lowering costs.

Optimising the contact centre

In addition, it is possible for insurers to optimise their contact centre, or even fully replace the legacy, on-premises contact centre with a digital one. With a cloud-based digital contact centre, multichannel interactions with clients can be made through voice, email, SMS, and even chat apps, allowing insurers to be in touch with their clients from virtually anywhere and on the channels their customers prefer.

Achieving the Unified Insuree Experience advantage is not only possible but is expected of any insurance service provider that aims to stay profitable and scale into new markets.

To meet this increased demand for innovative product and service offerings, insurers must partner with a service provider that can lead them through the digitalisation of each and every step of their customer’s lifecycle.

Ideally, companies should avoid introducing partial solutions or single channels, and rather look for a provider that can support full digitalisation, with an all-in-one, feature-packed solution that allows for a 360-degree view of the customer, cross-channel orchestration and powerful analytics. Everything a company needs for a successful journey into the digital realm should be on one platform.

In essence, insurance companies should partner with a provider that can bring it all together and ensure that their digital channels are not underutilised and that the organisation does not miss opportunities to grow its business throughout the insuree lifecycle. The right partner will provide a solution that can support an insurer’s expansion into new markets and follow them as they grow.

Dorotea Vatavuk is Enterprise Sales Lead at Infobip


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E-Business

Firm Reports a 48% Increase in Malicious Packages Threatening Software Supply Chains

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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.


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NDPC Probes Suspected Data Breach in Examination Centres

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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.

NDPC Probes Suspected Data Breach in Examination Centres

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.

 

 

 


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Nigeria Among Hotspots as Kaspersky Warns of Rising Ransomware Threat in Africa

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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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