E-Business
To make ePayments more acceptable, Nigeria needs to curb fraud
By Victor Irechukwu, Head of Engineering, OnePipe
When a credit alert drops on your phone, chances are you will get excited. Even if it wasn’t a surprise and you were expecting that money. But when it is a debit alert, there’s also a certain type of gloom you feel; you want money to keep coming in but as little as possible of it going out.
Victor Irechukwu, Head of Engineering, OnePipe
It may be safe to say most of us feel that way.
Now, imagine the debit alert was for a transaction you know nothing about. A commonly reported theme has been alerts that your card was used to make deposits on a gambling website, whereas you may never have even indulged in gambling your entire life.
At other times, you are shown a debit alert by someone who wants to purchase goods or services from you, but only later realise they showed you what has now been termed ‘fake alerts’. By this time, your goods, for instance, would have been long gone.
In recent months, social media has been awash with reports of money literally growing wings and leaving some people’s accounts to those of other people without authorisation. Many of these cases have gone viral on social media, causing embarrassment for the banks involved – The issues are either quietly – or corrected with public acknowledgement. But not all are resolved, at least not yet.
As much as the country and even individuals would like to go cashless, these bad experiences leave a sour taste in the mouth, and they have continued to rain on the parade as Nigeria marches towards a cashless economy. It must be stressed that a cashless economy does not mean theft of money will stop, what it does is to change how thieves go about it. But more importantly, it also doesn’t mean thefts must occur, at least not if systems are strengthened and the right protocols are put in place.
In the electronic world, an article on The Balance Money describes hackers as the bank robbers and muggers and in a cashless society we are all exposed to them. According to the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), growth in the use of electronic channels, specifically mobile devices has also enticed fraudsters into focusing their efforts on these electronic channels.
When an attack is successful and the culprits are able to drain funds from your account, you could be effectively left stranded. God forbid you needed that money for a life threatening emergency because that could be the end unless you are one of the lucky few whose funds get recovered in a place like Nigeria – and on time too.
Agusto & Co.’s ‘2022 Consumer digital banking satisfaction index for Nigerian banks’, found that approximately 59 percent of respondents had been fraud victims on the digital platforms of their banks.
The figures in terms of number of attacks, success rate and amounts lost remain a source of concern. By the third quarter of 2022, the total number of frauds & forgeries cases reported by Nigerian banks was 19,314 as against 27,356 incidents reported in the second quarter of 2022.
But there’s more. While the number of attacks represents a 29.40 percent decrease between the periods, the total sum reported to be involved in fraud cases increased by 9.50 percent to N9.62 billion from N8.78 billion in Q2 2022. Also, for the total amount lost due to fraud incidents, there was a significant increase of 207.94 percent from N1.17 billion in the second quarter of 2022 to N3.62 billion in the third quarter of 2022.
In essence, the number of attacks may have decreased within that particular period, but more money was lost to the fraudulent attacks.
These insights were provided in the Q3 2022 report by FITC, an organisation mandated to receive data on fraud from all Nigerian banks and prepare quarterly reports. The figures show that the highest number of occurrences were recorded under computer/web fraud followed by mobile fraud which includes fraud activities through USSD transactions and ATM related fraud.
BusinessDay had even reported that every day between January and March 2022, there was an average of 450 incidents of frauds and forgeries against Nigerian bank customers. In those three months, the attackers targeted N14.65 billion, with Computer/Web Fraud responsible for N10.57 billion (72.18 percent), and Mobile Fraud recording 1.48 billion (10.08 percent).
Those 40,522 attacks had resulted in N1.54 billion lost by bank customers. Computer/Web Fraud accounted for 70.51 percent (N1.07 billion), followed by Mobile Fraud accounting for 17.58 percent (N270.92 million) at the time.
Going back a bit, data by NIBSS also showed that fraud attempts via mobile channel saw a 330 percent increase year-on-year (YoY) between 2019 and 2020, while attempts via web and POS channels saw a 173 percent and 215 percent increase YoY. In those nine months, 96 percent of the attacks were successful and there were 46,126 of such attacks.
“This trend is expected to continue as Nigeria further grows financial inclusion and customers become increasingly dependent on electronic channels for their day-to-day transactions,” said NIBSS. In other words; things are expected to get a lot worse, according to the organisation described as Nigeria’s central switch for the financial industry.
Fraud is and has always been a large threat to commerce and e-payment transactions. It is impossible to totally eliminate the chance of fraud, but applying timely measures and ensuring the use of secure payment infrastructure can help reduce or even eliminate these risks. Security should continue to be top priority for every party involved in ePayment transactions. Fraud prevention involves taking measures to stop fraud from occurring and taking steps to detect frauds quickly (when they occur) and stop them as soon as possible. Different techniques for preventing and detecting frauds are required as there are different types of fraud in e-payment transactions.
Awareness of these risks by merchants, consumers and individuals plays an important role in reducing fraud in e-payment transactions. Merchant awareness and education is important – they should be aware of the types of frauds, implications and application of best practices. Consumer awareness and education is also important in order to reduce identity theft or payment data theft. This would help the individual in adopting an active and cautious attitude when carrying out electronic transactions. It could teach them to be aware of possible risks, avoid e-scams, and minimise giving vital information to merchants (or other parties) when carrying out electronic payments.
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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