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Sophos Endpoint Security Advancements Improve Cyberthreat Defenses and Streamline Management

Sandra Ani reporting

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sophos endpoint
  • Introduces Adaptive Active Adversary Protection, Linux Malware Protection Enhancements, Account Health Check Capabilities, Integrated ZTNA Agent, and More

Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, today introduced innovative advancements to its portfolio of industry-leading endpoint security offerings.

New adaptive active adversary protection; Linux malware protection enhancements; account health check capabilities; an integrated zero trust network access (ZTNA) agent for Windows and macOS devices; and more improve frontline defenses against advanced cyberthreats and streamline endpoint security management.

“Ransomware remains one of the most prevalent and damaging cyberthreats to organizations, with Sophos incident responders still consistently remediating ransomware activity worldwide. Now isn’t the time for organizations to let their guard down because of any perceived reduction in attacks; in fact, they should be strengthening defenses as attacks are now more intricate and difficult to detect, requiring advanced security techniques that can sense and then quickly adapt to better protect themselves,” said Raja Patel, senior vice president of products at Sophos. “Sophos endpoint security is widely recognized as the industry gold standard, and we’re consistently innovating our market-leading, intelligent endpoint technologies to keep organizations ahead of unrelenting attackers.”

Designed to improve protection and operational efficiency, as well as speed up detection and response, the new Sophos endpoint innovations include:

  • Adaptive active adversary protection: A core part of Sophos’ “shields up” design methodology that provides defenders with additional time needed to respond to targeted attacks underway. Sophos Intercept X immediately enables heightened defenses as soon as it detects a “hands-on-keyboard” endpoint intrusion. This wide-reaching step up in defensive measures removes an attacker’s ability to take further actions by minimizing the attack surface, disrupting and containing the attack prior to response team engagement, and providing insights needed for complete remediation
  • Linux malware protection enhancements: On-access malware scanning and quarantine capabilities improve real-time prevention of security incidents within Linux operating environments. Added to the Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server offering, these new features complement existing functionality, including live runtime detections and response to container escapes, cryptominers, data destruction, and kernel exploits
  • Account health check: Intuitive, real-time health check monitoring of security configurations and policy settings with the ability to automatically return to recommended settings in a single click, optimizing security posture and enabling organizations to promptly re-establish security best practices. Assessments ensure devices are running the necessary security components, policies are following recommended settings, tamper protection is active, exclusions aren’t creating attack surface exposure, and more

  • Integrated ZTNA agent for Windows and macOS devices: Sophos Intercept X is one of the only endpoint protection solutions with a modular ZTNA agent, and organizations can now extend defenses to include Sophos ZTNA across entire estates without deploying an additional agent

  • Faster, lightweight agent: Reduces the Windows agent’s memory footprint by 40% and the number of processes by more than 30%, accelerating the performance of applications, workloads and devices. Sophos has also introduced a new extended detection and response (XDR) sensor deployment option that’s approximately 80% lighter than the previous full agent
Sophos Endpoint

Sophos endpoint solutions provide deep learning malware detection, anti-ransomware technology, exploit prevention, and much more to prevent attackers from gaining a foothold in the first place. Sophos Intercept X, the market-leading endpoint security solution, protects more than 300,000 organizations against both known and unknown malware and exploits.

Sophos XDR gives security analysts the ability to proactively hunt threats, providing faster detection, investigation and response to drive better security outcomes. Sophos endpoint offerings also include server workload protection for unmatched server and container security and integrated web and application controls; Sophos Mobile for secure unified endpoint management; and Sophos Encryption for full disk encryption.  

Sophos’ complete and integrated portfolio of endpoint, network and cloud solutions and managed security services are part of the Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem. They’re powered by threat intelligence from Sophos X-Ops for faster and more contextual and synchronized protection, detection and response.

Sophos Endpoint

Availability
Sophos endpoint security offerings are available for immediate purchase exclusively through Sophos’ global channel of partners and managed service providers (MSPs). New software management options enable organizations to precisely control which versions of Sophos endpoint software are deployed on specific devices with new fixed term support packages for Windows computers and servers, with macOS and Linux coverage coming later this year. Solutions are easily managed in the cloud-native Sophos Central platform. Partners can also leverage Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) as a comprehensive service to detect and respond to threats. The industry-leading service offering is trusted by more than 15,000 organizations for 24/7 threat hunting, detection and response with industry-first third-party integration capabilities and a $1 million Sophos Breach Protection Warranty.

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SIM Boxing, And The Unboxing of a Crime Syndicate

Writer: Suleiman Bala Bakori

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SIM card

Boxes have a multitude of uses, and the word “box”, lends itself to diverse contexts. For “Ajala Travelers,” the box is a necessity for keeping goods for their endless journeys. In literature, idiomatically, it can be said that “one has been boxed into a corner;” another might say to deal with a conundrum: “think outside the box;” then there is the “Pandora’s box” that no one wants opened.

To “box one’s ear’s” refers to a hit on the head, especially around one’s ears. For those who celebrate Christmas, “Boxing Day,” which is the 26th of December, the second day of Christmastide is not to be joked with: A day to unbox gifts. So much for the box.

Another type of boxes exists in the telecommunications world: The SIM Box. Have you ever received an international call but saw a local phone number ring in? That is SIM Boxing in action. Let me explain.

SIM boxing happens when a person uses a special equipment, what is called a SIM Box containing tens to hundreds of SIM Cards—from 32, to 96, to 512 and more SIMs —to terminate international calls by bringing in the international call into the SIM Box using internet connections and regenerating the calls to the called party from one of the hundred SIMs in the box.

This way, the called party will see the local number of the SIM from the SIM Box, and not the original international number calling.

With SIM Boxes, the syndicate charges international call carriers lower rates than what regular Nigerian telecommunications operators would charge, as they do not have to pay the full cost of maintaining and operating a phone network.

Basically, they are bypassing the normal route for international phone call termination to terminate international calls cheaply and making windfall profits off it.

Take for instance, a telecommunications operator in Nigeria would ordinarily charge international carriers 10cents per minute for terminating an international call in Nigeria. However, by routing the call through a SIM Boxing syndicate, the international telecommunications carrier only pays a fraction of the charge to the syndicate, say 5cents per minute and does not have to pay the full 10cents per minute charge.

The SIM Boxer will terminate this call to the called subscriber at a rate of, say N15 per minute using one of the SIM cards in their SIM Box. The SIM Boxer thus makes a killing from the differential between the rate charged to the international carrier and the rate paid to telecommunications operators whose SIM they utilise in their SIM Boxes, at the expense of our national security and income of mobile network operators and quality of our service to consumers.

Asides the revenue loss that local mobile network operators suffer courtesy the activities of these syndicates, networks face congestion around areas where the illegal call routings via SIM Boxing occurs. With the huge traffic from the boxes, callers around the area see more dropped calls, poor call quality, and slower data speeds.

The introduction of the linking of National Identity Numbers (NIN) to SIMs is one way the Federal Government has worked to tackle this criminal enterprise. With every SIM in the country being linked to an NIN, an identity is tied to the owner of each line, and regulators now have visibility of ownership. That is not all. There is also the “Max-4 Rule” where a subscriber is not allowed to have more than four lines per network operator linked to his NIN. With this rule in place, coupled with the NIN-SIM Linkage, every telephone subscriber in Nigeria would not just be accurately identifiable but limited to having only four telephone lines per subscriber.

To enforce this rule, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the 29th of March 2024 announced the deadline for Mobile Network Operators to bar all subscribers who had five lines and above, and whose NIN failed the verification test of biometrics matching.

Over the last few weeks, sources within the NCC have confirmed cases where a single NIN was linked to over 100,000 lines.

Some NINs had well over 10,000 SIMS linked to them, others over a thousand, others had hundreds. Many have questioned the reports and asked, what would any single reasonable person be doing with these number of lines? Justifiable questions, because no sane person—who is not running a business—should own more than five SIM cards.

Given the ‘Max 4 Rule’ in place and the NIN-SIM Linkage Policy, SIM Boxers have been boxed into a corner.

The applications they use require tens to thousands of SIM Cards, and the imperative to stay anonymous. If these policies are well and fully implemented, this is the death knell for SIM Boxing merchants.

But the regulator, NCC needs to be fast and ready for the battle ahead. SIM Boxing is a billion-dollar criminal enterprise. They are not going to go down without a fight. It is like taking a bone being chewed from the mouth of a bulldog.

Already, the battle seems to have kicked off. A lawyer, Barrister Olukoya Ogunbeje has recently taken the Federal Government, NCC and Mobile Network Operators to court, claiming that the barring of SIMs not linked to NINs goes against his fundamental human rights, and has cost him the loss of business opportunities.

Anyone who has Nigeria’s interest at heart ordinarily supports this policy. It then does not add up seeing a so-called activist lawyer take up such a matter that is clearly against the public interest—unless this is the Haka cry of SIM Boxers.

A most interesting observation with his case is that it is not even a class action, but individually driven. It begs the question then, who is funding Barr. Olukoya Ogungbeje? What is his interest in fighting this policy that puts paid to the business of a criminal enterprise? Is he funded by interests in the SIM Boxing world? Time would tell. But in the meantime, NCC must go head on without fear or intimation and clean the Augean stable of SIM ownership in Nigeria.

Suleiman Bala Bakori is a researcher, and writes from the FCT.

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inq.Digital Supports Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1.0]

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PAFOn 1.0
PAFON SPEAKERS

Inq. Digital Nigeria Limited has been announced as a sponsor of Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1.0] maiden edition holding this Thursday in Lagos.

inq. Digital Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of inq. Group is an emerging leading digital and cloud solutions provider that delivers simpler seamless solutions to complex business challenges.

With offices in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano, inq. provides reliable and affordable Intelligent Connectivity, SDN/NFV, Cloud and Digital services (including Edge –AI) for Nigerian businesses including those in the payment space.

Participation is FREE, however, pre-registration is required: https://bit.ly/4c4N19H.

Speaking ahead of Payments Forum Nigeria [PAFON 1,0] scheduled to take place at Oriental Hotel, Lekki Road, Lagos on Thursday, March 21, 2024 by 9am under the theme: “Payments: Trust, Security and Privacy in AI Era”, Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, the co-founder of TechCastle Foundation, the organisers, said the goal is to enable information exchange and knowledge sharing on key industry insights issues amongst key stakeholders, with the objective of ensuring a collaborative and proactive approach to push for policies that enable growth, tackling/mitigating fraud and limiting occurrences and losses.

Speakers

The following speakers are lined up for the Forum: Chibuzo Efobi, Director, Payments System Management, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); Festus Amede, Chairman, Committee of Chief Information Security Officers of Nigerian Financial institutions (CCISONFI; Dr. Adewale Peter Obadare, Chief Visionary Officer (CVO), Digital Encode Limited; Adetokunbo Omotosho, Chief Executive Officer, Cybervergent; Roosevelt Elias, Founder, Payble; Ikenna Ndugbu, chief compliance officer, Moniepoint MFB, and Peter Evbota, Sales Director at inq. Digital Nigeria Limited.

Payments Forum Nigeria is organised by TechCastle Foundation and sponsored by: inq. Digital Nigeria Limited, Cybervergent, Moniepoint, Digital Encode Limited, Payble with support from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

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Business

Meet Kingsley Adonu

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In the dynamic world of entrepreneurship, there are visionaries who not only navigate the business landscape but redefine it. Meet Kingsley Adonu, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the SMobile Group, a conglomerate that stands as a beacon of excellence and diversity in the global business arena.

Kingsley Adonu is a visionary entrepreneur and the Founder of the SMobile Group, a conglomerate synonymous with excellence and diversity. As the Chief Executive Officer, he has steered the group to remarkable heights, overseeing a spectrum of businesses that span across Telecommunications, Oil and Gas, Real Estate, Hospitality, Water Production, Agriculture, Technology, E-commerce, Energy, Sports, Entertainment, Education, Health, Logistics and Financial Services, with branches extending globally to UK, USA, China, South Africa, and Canada.

Under Kingsley’s astute leadership, SMobile Group has emerged as a major partner for MTN, evident in the impactful presence of the SMobile brand in the telecommunications landscape. His strategic insights and forward-thinking approach have positioned the group as a dynamic player in multiple industries.

Beyond the boardroom, Kingsley Adonu is a dedicated philanthropist, committed to making a positive impact in communities. His philanthropic efforts extend beyond business, reflecting a deep-seated belief in the responsibility of successful individuals to contribute meaningfully to society.

Kingsley’s influence is not confined to national borders; he has actively participated in numerous international telecom conferences, further enriching his understanding of global industry trends and fostering valuable connections with industry leaders worldwide.

With an unwavering commitment to excellence, Kingsley Adonu continues to inspire and lead the SMobile Group towards new horizons, blending business acumen with a passion for positive societal change.

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