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[OPINION] Made in Aba: “The Kalu And Abaribe I Know”

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By Emma Enyinnaya , Obingwa

Following the release of Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe’s book “Made In Aba,” in Abuja. It is obvious many Nigerians are waiting for Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s reaction, since majority of Abaribe’s chronicle centered on his working relationship with the former Abia Governor.

Expectedly, Mr Abaribe’s account of his ordeal as Deputy Governor under Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is gaining momentum as a topic for discussion in every part of Abia state considering Senator Kalu’s popularity and dexterity in Abia State.

Kalu’s successful political sojourn can be summarized with the expression “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

This expression comes from the famous English playwright, William Shakespeare. He wrote this in his play Twelfth Night, which was written around the year 1602. This play is a comedy about two twins who got caught in a storm that caused their ship to wreck. This shipwreck caused the twins to become separated.

One of the characters in the play, Malvolio, utters this quote as he reads a letter.

In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.

The letter further says that the writer was born into greatness, due to having noble or high ranking parents. The letter urges the addressee to accept his fate, and therefore accept his greatness.

Reading the aberration by Senator Abaribe is quite laughable especially to those that know what he represents in the country, especially, the hallowed chamber of the Nigerian Senate.

Abaribe who is 70 years but claims to be 66 is not just bitter about a man who made him but angry for being made by a man he is very much older than with 11 years.

Mr Abaribe is always quick to criticize the President and his regime but has never for once questioned his state government for owing civil servants and pensioners for years since Senator Kalu left office

His senatorial election has always gone into rerun even when Abia is a PDP state

Abaribe is eloquent and speaks well in the Senate but he is an epitome of failure, chronic liar and unrepentant hypocrite who has spent over 20 years in power with nothing to show for it in the lives of his people either through human or capital development. He has been in the Senate for 16 years and the road to his village is an eyesore. Every senator has zonal intervention project (ZIP) and Abaribe has always converted his own ZIP to cash and eaten alone by himself and his family. In Orji Kalu’s one year in office as a Senator he has shown leadership. He has attracted 19 roads in Abia North Senatorial zone. He has built schools, hospitals and rehabilitated many more . It is Senator Orji Uzor Kalu that made Abians know that a Senator can build road , hospitals and schools .

Abaribe has equally shown wickedness by accepting he is made in Aba but failed to contribute to the development of Aba. He couldn’t even launch his so called book where he was made . He revealed nothing of good he has done for Obingwa and Aba. His book would have been as useless as a tissue paper without mentioning Orji Kalu; his benefactor and the man who gave him a shoulder to climb when he had nothing and was a nobody .

For the records, Abaribe claimed to have rode in a Chisco vehicle with Senator Kalu back to Umuahia in 1998, though that’s the only half truth in his book; the said trip was when Kalu’s private jet couldn’t fly due to weather problem and Chisco owner, Chief Chidi Anyaegbu did a fast traveling arrangement for Kalu who was in a hurry to attend a rally in Aba. Kalu with his policemen and security saw Abaribe in Chisco park and offered him a free ride .

It was during the trip that Abaribe told Kalu that he was planning to contest for a House of Assembly seat and sought for his financial assistance. After their trip, Kalu offered him a deputy governorship position despite stiff opposition from his people.

Enyinnaya Abaribe became the Deputy Governor of Abia State without spending or contributing a dime during the campaign period that led to their successful election.

The first thing he did after resumption of office was to duplicate government receipts with the sole aim of siphoning government money meant for the development of Abia State; That was where his problem as the then Deputy Govornor of the state started!

Obviously, Abaribe was not ready to serve the people. All he wanted was for the people to service his kleptomaniac attitude and that of his cronies at a time Kalu was busy fixing dilapidated roads across the state.

Abaribe also mentioned Kalu’s brothers harassing him as a Deputy Governor in his book. Such statement is ridiculous and laughable. For the records, Mascot Uzor Kalu and Nnanna Uzor Kalu lived in the United States when Orji Uzor Kalu was governor .Nnanna only came back in 2003 when Abaribe was already out of office. Mascot returned to Nigeria in 2007 when the then newly elected governor, T. A Orji offered him to serve as Chief of Staff . So where and when did Kalu’s brothers take Abaribe for an oath taking ?

Abaribe is my relative . We come from the same clan in Umuekwensu , Obingwa Local Government Area and he knows me very well . I have also known Orji Kalu since 1996 and I can’t corroborate his personality with what Abaribe wrote about him.

When likes of Abaribe talk about Kalu being fetish and all that, I can confidently tell you that it’s a big fat lie. It seems to be one of those repeated propaganda that these men in Abia has continued to sell. In fact, to my best of knowledge, Kalu detests people that are fetish, he doesn’t believe in those things. He believes only in Sense and Science which he repeatedly echoes that God has given us in His magnanimity.

His strength of character has shown in different ways to prove he is nothing near being fetish. When he was detained in Kuje, few people that came to tell him stories of mallams and native doctors doing extraordinary things to help him come out of prison where kicked out by him and he warned them never to come close to the place again. He detests those fetish character and their likes.

To my best of knowledge, he sees people that engages in idolatry as dirty and ungodly. People don’t know how English Kalu can be. He is so much exposed, very continental and very English .Propaganda, blackmails and lies sells well in the East and Orji Kalu has been a victim .

One should only ignore and completely ignore . There is no truth in their rants. Their only weapon and excuse of non performance is blackmail on Kalu . But you know what, Abians already know better and can’t fall for this cheap and fetish propaganda. Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is a destined child and will live to the fulfillment of his destiny. They had come against him in different forms ; prison , blackmails and unprintable names but he has continued to stay strong and focused on his destiny.

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Cybersecurity in 2024: Towards Ever Greater Sophistication of Tactics

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Chester Wisniewski, Director Global Field CTO

Writer: CHESTER WISNIEWSKI, Director Global Field CTO, Sophos

With 2024 fast approaching, what are the results for 2023 and what are the developments in the threat landscape for this new year?

The year 2023 was marked by persistence in the tactics of cybercriminals, with the predominance of ransomware, the exploitation of vulnerabilities, theft of credentials and even attacks targeting the supply chain. The common point in all his attacks is their formidable effectiveness.

It is therefore essential to ask what trends will persist in 2024 and what strategies businesses should adopt to deal with these future cyber threats.

Between persistent trends and evolving cybercrime tactics

In 2024, the threat landscape is not expected to change radically, particularly with regard to attack typologies and criminal tactics and procedures.

Criminal groups still primarily focus their attention on financial gains and ransomware remains their weapon of choice. These cybercriminals tend to take the easy way out by opportunistically attacking unpatched security vulnerabilities.

The recent Citrix Bleed attack demonstrated the agility of cybercriminals when it comes to quickly and effectively exploiting these new vulnerabilities.
However, once patches are applied to these vulnerabilities, cyberattackers tend to revert to more common strategies of stealing credentials or, failing that, cookies or session cookies, which, while slightly slower, constitute always a proven means that allows them to penetrate within a system.

In 2024, however, we should expect increased sophistication in defense evasion tactics, particularly due to the generalization of certain technologies such as multi-factor authentication. These attacks will combine malicious proxy servers, social engineering techniques and repeated authentication request attacks or “fatigue attacks”.

AI and regulations will continue to shape cybersecurity

In 2024, the development of AI will have a positive impact on the efficiency of IT teams and security teams by enabling them to strengthen defenses and work more efficiently, including through the processing of vast volumes of data in the aim of detecting anomalies. It should make it possible to respond more quickly in the event of an incident.

Indeed, analysis of attacks in 2023 showed a shortening of the time between network penetration and the triggering of a final attack – using malware or ransomware. The need for rapid detection and response tools to prevent costly incidents is therefore essential.

Finally, regulatory developments could have a major influence on measures taken against ransomware. The need to take more substantial measures could push some states to penalize the payment of ransoms, which would represent a brake on malicious actors and change the perspective of companies in the event of an attack.

Other stricter legislation, such as the implementation of the European NIS2 Directive, is also expected to force companies to take additional measures, particularly regarding their abilities to collect data sets.

To protect themselves against increasingly rapid, effective and costly attacks, companies will need to strengthen their defenses by equipping themselves with tools that allow them to detect and respond to incidents more quickly.

The worsening cybersecurity talent shortage does not appear to be as serious as some studies claim. On the contrary, companies have implemented more lax hiring criteria and more open-mindedness in the recruitment process.

From this perspective, to guarantee their survival in a constantly evolving threat landscape, companies have every interest in establishing partnerships with cybersecurity experts whose main mission is to make the hyperconnected world safer, to advise and assist them. in setting up effective defenses.

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GROpinion

The Internal Threat: The Hidden Face of Corporate Threats

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CHESTER WISNIEWSKI on Insider threat
By: CHESTER WISNIEWSKI, Field CTO – Applied research

Businesses today face many threats; but if those coming from outside are their main source of concern with a priority focus on ransomware, they too often forget to consider internal threats which can be just as devastating.

In fact, they take less time to assess the adaptability of their internal security measures in case a cyberattacker manages to break through their defenses from the inside and recover sensitive data that is easily accessible to him. So, what are the means to put in place to detect these threats and respond to them effectively?

The sources of these insider threats are diverse and very often undetected or detectable. They can thus be the result of negligence or even malice.

They can, for example, come from an implementation of relaxed security controls that do not apply to certain systems, or from a lack of logging and identification of these malicious activities.

Although, difficult to measure – since they are rarely the subject of dedicated reports – these internal attacks have already affected many companies.

What are the reasons for the appearance of these threats?

Intentionally or not, insider threats are legion. For example, when an employee carelessly forgets a USB key containing copies of critical information on the train, he then neglects to comply with all the rules in force.

This type of situation can be tragic for the company since there is therefore a risk of theft or public exposure of information that could lead to a violation of official regulations imposed by a governing body (usually GDPR, PCI and HIPPA) or by several regulatory bodies’ premises.

The company must then be extremely transparent by disclosing to its employees – and more broadly to the general public – that it has been the victim of a data breach within the organization, and it must also be held accountable. of all actions associated with this data breach.

But it can also be actions triggered intentionally for a wide variety of reasons. An employee may, for example, realize that he has the possibility of carrying out a malicious action in his workplace because of relaxed controls or because he has high visibility.

This type of situation can lead to the theft of confidential information belonging to the company. The employee then seizes this opportunity to harm the company with impunity.

Various flaws and patterns

Cybersecurity experts have identified three distinct insider threat motives which are revenge, greed, and inattention.

The first two reasons include, for example, intentional and accidental acts, and are more likely to occur following a dismissal or a resignation. However, these reasons vary according to the type of activity of the company.

In the case of the defense sector, it can be corruption or espionage, unlike the ICT sector, where commercial data theft is more widespread.

Employees in charge of selling products and solutions can thus save their customers’ contact details in files and programmers can steal the source code. Despite their media coverage, on the whole, cases of espionage or sabotage remain, fortunately, exceptions.

More generally, data leaks are often caused by insider threats, when sensitive information belonging to the company becomes “uncontained”, when it should be classified confidential according to the operational context.

This information then becomes “public” and people whose position has nothing to do with it can consult it. Very often, when businesses are faced with such accidental data loss or leakage, it is the result of carelessness, inadvertence or clumsiness – such as the loss of mobile devices, USB storage media or public exposure of repositories stored in the cloud.

The classic example of accidental data release comes from the use of the “To” and “CC” fields when sending an email to multiple external recipients, where personally identifiable information is exposed to all of these recipients; a situation that could have been avoided by using the “CCI” (blind copy) mode.

Finally, data destruction is also a typical action where the integrity and availability of data is taken away from the business.

This has the effect of preventing him from accessing critical information, which can directly impact the operational capacity of the company. While this activity is mostly associated with ransomware operators, it can also be attributed to insider threats.

It should be borne in mind that there are many reasons that could lead to such acts, but the main reason remains that the data is generally stored in a weak way, which allows too many people to access information that has nothing to do with the tasks entrusted to them.

These people can steal sensitive data for revenge, but also destroy it or remove it from the company or even try to extort its return.

How can we best respond to these threats?

The implementation of a strategy to prevent these internal threats remains difficult to implement, since once the attack has been launched, anticipation and control are already outdated. It is therefore extremely important to set up preparation sessions aimed at determining the impact of these attacks.

Thus, training employees in the correct use and understanding of internal company systems and processes can go a long way towards avoiding errors associated with accidental data leaks.

In addition, it can be useful to turn to several solutions and tools such as file and document management systems to better manage the critical data that the organization has in its possession. ZTNA limits access to only required tools/services/apps rather than everything on a company’s LAN.

It is also possible to employ Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) tools, capable of preventing accidental data leaks – except in the case of intentional theft. XDR systems and firewalls can also be very useful as part of the disaster prevention and recovery plan because they allow DLP to be implemented and log access and data movement at the same time.  Their actions facilitate forensic work, particularly in understanding failures and their consequences.

Finally, the implementation of technical controls capable of regulating access to data and systems that contain sensitive information, as well as the monitoring of the results of these controls and the responses to violations of the security policy contribute to the detection of ‘a malicious attack in progress.

To protect their company and their employees from these internal threats, managers must imperatively limit access to the data to the persons concerned and ensure the implementation of strict controls on the most sensitive data, while providing them with the support they need.

In essence, therefore, the right balance must be struck between people, process and technology, since any imbalance can favor the introduction of instability, as well as an easier increase and spread of risks – whether they either external or internal to the company.

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GROpinion

[OPINION] Kperogi’s Veiled Campaign for Tinubu

Article by Hashim Suleiman

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Professor Farooq Kperogi and Tinubu
Professor Farooq Kperogi and Tinubu

I’ll start on this by referring you an earlier piece I had written on 17 April, 2021 about Professor Farooq Kperogi when he attempted to hoodwink his readers and Professor Pantami that he was the latter’s friend but still went ahead to disparage him by spewing lies and supposed private matters on the Professor, the piece can be read here.

At that point, I had just switched from being his ardent fan to seeing him for who he really is, a propaganda merchant who thrives on the docility of Nigerians to cash out.

Kperogi had to acknowledge that article as it bursted his little games on 24 April, 2021 in his column tagged ‘On my friendship with Pantami’ and which can be read here.

I read Kperogi piece of today 11th February, 2023 where he attempted to as usual disparage Buhari’s naira policy and linked it as a ploy to stop a BAT and I found the analogy in it very ludicrous to say the least. I wonder why Kperogi has developed a permanent feeling and understanding that Nigerians are extremely daft and so he could spew anything at them albeit hypocritically after cashing out his little coins behind the scene.

Kperogi is a supporter of Tinubu but just like so many Nigerians who share his type of double character, he is  finding it difficult to come clean about it, so he is using mind games this time around to blame Buhari and his policy as the reason why Tinubu would fail even though according to him, he doesn’t want it but he would prefer that the failure of Tinubu occurs through ballots and not through sabotage.

However, what Kperogi and the likes who don’t have the audacity and criticality to formulate critical campaign strategies to market Tinubu don’t understand is that the suffering of Nigerians which had largely made them to make up a mind did not start with the naira scarcity and it’s attendant suffering which in my opinion is over bloated by the likes of Kperogi and other propaganda merchants to unfairly blackmail Buhari into succumbing to perhaps use state resources to install Asiwaju as president and that won’t happen because in reality Nigeria has long moved away from such. You have to have some level of popularity to rig elections in any society and rather than campaign enough to get the masses support for Asiwaju, Kperogi and the likes believe the victory must only be gotten through blackmail.

While on my way back from office yesterday, I critically examined the menial marketers like ‘suya’ sellers and the rest, and I saw a normal activity going on as I used to know it and I wondered in my mind where the excessive suffering that was been hyped was? It has also been established and I know that those people in the remote villages that Kperogi attempted to refer to do not need more than one to five thousand Naira to transact and while in the beginning things got a little rough, POS merchants have since gotten cash for them and things are normalizing, so I’m sure that the whole propaganda about suffering is being spewed by some political elements who perhaps see free and fair contest as a threat to their victory and such narrative has to stop quickly because in recent past it was same kind of narrative that made Jonathan loose elections, Nigerians desist such fearful narrative.

Furthermore, Kperogi alluded to the fact that Asiwaju always used billion vans to win his way through elections, assuming without conceding that was true as coming from him, is Kperogi then telling us that he supports a corruption of the electoral system? If anything, is ensuring a free and fair contest by Buhari not worthy of commendation? I can bet you Nigerians especially those from

Northern Nigeria have accepted this policy not because there are not minor and temporary discomfort about it but because they see it from the prism of Buhari doing what he ought to have done a long time ago which was to annihilate corruption and its practices, so it appears the people were ready to bear this brunt in as much as it guarantees free and fair contest.

Speaking about a payback by Buhari after Tinubu had supported him, I have maintained in different fora that the agreement for the reciprocation was a party matter and that had been settled at the primary elections because indeed all stakeholders allowed Tinubu to emerge even though they had other preferences which is normal with every human. However, general elections are a totally different games because there are other contestants and it is a democratic regime we are in where numbers of votes garnered matters most, so Kperogi and co should rather concentrate on fetching votes for Tinubu rather than blackmailing Buhari to hand over powder to Tinubu already baked.

Kperogi supports Tinubu,I knew this penultimate the primary elections, when he kept dropping hammers on Osinbajo, a contract he collected to disparage Osinbajo in the eyes of the northerners so as to pave way for Asiwaju and that worked but the current one won’t work because the ordinary people from the north have bought into it to a large extent maybe not so much from the beginning of it but much more now. Rather than all these intellectual shortcuts, I have advised the APC and it’s campaign to make appropriate recruitments to formulate strategies and such recruitments can be out of the ‘big names’ and the usuals, there are millions of smart boys and girls out there who can beat Kperogi and the likes to their cheap and opportunistic games, Daniel Bwala is one of such examples!

May the best man win for Nigeria’s increased progress, Amen!

Hashim Suleiman, PDP, APC and Consensus candidates
Hashim Suleiman can be reached via [email protected]

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