E-Business
Why We Should Get Excited About PaaS

PaaS is not just some esoteric, ‘techie’ subject – it’s going to change the world
Type ‘Platform as a Service’ into Google and you’re met with a long list of technical explanations describing the technology and how it works – most of which are fairly dry, largely uninspiring and surprisingly unenlightening.
This is symptomatic of a wider problem with the way Platform as a Service – or PaaS – is often discussed: there’s too much debate about what it is rather than what it does.
Of course that isn’t a problem if you, like me, get a kick from technology, but it’s doing PaaS a major disservice.
Once you take a step back from the IT side and focus on the business benefits PaaS actually delivers, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s one of the most exciting developments in the cloud.
This is because PaaS holds the key to digital transformation. It’s the underlying technology that allows businesses to rapidly build and customize innovative web applications so they can revolutionize the way they work internally and deliver innovative new services to their customers.
Let’s look at some of the – frankly amazing – things it can bring about for business:
First, insurance giant AIG is currently exploring how drones can be used to improve its service. It’s testing whether drones can be used during natural disasters to record footage that can then be used to settle claims faster.
This is a great example of the sort of highly-innovative, experimental application development and testing that PaaS can enable.
Secondly, in agriculture, America’s Monsanto is looking beyond its chemicals expertise and moving into computing.
The company is driving innovation with technologies that gather and process information relevant to farmers, like sensor arrays that enable each and every corn kernel to be planted at the perfect depth and in the most fertile part of a field.
This is exactly the sort of transformational innovation that can be enabled by PaaS.
Thirdly, meanwhile, PaaS is helping organizations in the healthcare industry develop a wide range of applications to help people stay healthy.
Take National Pharmacies in Australia, which has developed an app to help patients better manage prescriptions, alerting them automatically when a prescription needs to be picked up and providing a record of past transactions.
These three use cases have one thing in common: innovation. PaaS is the perfect driver for innovation within businesses, as it gives businesses the agility they need for rapid web development. Rather than market-testing a new application – whether that is insurance drones or healthcare apps – businesses can now take the resources they need as a service from the cloud.
They pay only for what they require, and can use pre-existing development tools to realize their ideas. This can be done without the costs and risks associated with traditional IT projects, and the platform can co-exist with the existing infrastructure that serves the day-to-day running of the business. So powerful is PaaS in driving innovation, that at last year’s Oracle OpenWorld we predicted that by 2025 all application development and testing will move to the cloud.
With the potential to have such a large impact on how businesses approach IT, PaaS is certainly the future for any company that is serious about innovating and winning market share – and that makes it an exciting technology indeed.
I’ve now shown you some of the things PaaS can do, but I imagine many people still want a deeper dive on how it actually helps businesses achieve these things.
Chris Chelliah, Group Vice President and Chief Architect, Core Technology and Cloud, Oracle Asia Pacific @chrischelliah
E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
E-Business
NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
E-Business
NITDA, API Partner Against Harmful Online Content

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.
The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.
The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.
In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.
“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.
Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.
“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.
He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework. He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.
According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.
Earlier in her opening remarks, Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.
Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.
“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”
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