The recent protest organized by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Akida Forum raises significant questions about political motivations and accountability.

Led by Musa Mahmoud the APC AKIDA group staged a demonstration at the Abuja headquarters of the Department of State Services (DSS), demanding an investigation into the Minister of State for Defence, Dr. Bello Mohammed Matawalle, amid allegations linking him to banditry in the state.

The protest, predominantly featuring hired women and youths from Abuja, was framed as a response to escalating security concerns in Zamfara.

However, the underlying motives appear to be rooted in political rivalry rather than genuine concern for public safety.

The leader of the APC Akida Forum Tijjani Ramallan claims that Governor Dauda Lawal has accused Matawalle of collusion with bandits, suggesting that such ties have perpetuated the insecurity plaguing the region.

A critical point overlooked by Mahmoud and his supporters is that Matawalle is no longer the executive governor of Zamfara.

The current governor, Dauda Lawal, now holds the title of the state’s chief security officer, and therefore, he bears the primary responsibility for addressing the security crisis.

Instead of engaging in a blame game, Lawal should focus on implementing effective strategies to combat the rampant insecurity and provide the dividends of democracy to the people of Zamfara state.

The animosity towards Matawalle seems to stem from his previous role as the Director General of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s campaign in the Northwest, where he played a pivotal role in securing significant electoral support for the current president.

This success has reportedly fueled envy among some political figures like Tijjani Ramallan, including Musa Mahmoud and others who may feel threatened by Matawalle’s rising profile.

It is noteworthy that allegations against Matawalle have been investigated by the National Security Adviser’s office, which found no evidence to support claims of his involvement in banditry.

This investigation contributed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision to retain Matawalle in his ministerial position, where he has reportedly managed security matters in the Northwest with professionalism.

Adding to the complexity of this situation, a Kano High Court recently issued a restraining order against Governor Lawal and others, prohibiting them from continuing their smear campaign against Matawalle. This legal development underscores the court’s recognition of the potential harm caused by unfounded allegations and the need for accountability in political discourse and the state government has found an ally in APC AKIDA led by Tijjani Ramallan.

Despite the court’s intervention, Governor Lawal continues to leverage media platforms to tarnish Matawalle’s reputation, linking him to banditry and corruption without substantiating evidence.

Such tactics appear to be desperate attempts to undermine Matawalle’s credibility, likely motivated by Lawal’s desire to solidify his political standing.

The ongoing campaign against Matawalle by Lawal and his associates raises serious concerns about the integrity of political discourse in Zamfara.

It is imperative for the public to remain vigilant against misleading narratives and to recognize the broader implications of such political maneuvers.

The Kano High Court’s ruling serves as a reminder of the importance of due process and the need for responsible governance.

In conclusion, the focus of accountability in Zamfara should shift towards Governor Dauda Lawal, who now holds the reins of security in the state.

Instead of casting blame on former officials, Lawal must take ownership of the security situation and work towards tangible solutions that prioritize the safety and well-being of the people of Zamfara.

Furthermore, since Matawalle operational visit to sokoto led to the elimination of Bandit leader Halilu Sububu who is alleged to have died with the treasure of the sponsors of banditry in zamfara state, the pain propelled them to further embark on campaign of calumny.

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.

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.