Tag Archive for: Nigerian

Nigerian press zones in on circulation of newly redesigned banknotes, others –

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The report that the newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation today with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.The Punch reports that the newly redesigned naira notes will go into circulation on Thursday (today) with Deposit Money Banks releasing the bills to their customers via over-the-counter payments.

This came about three weeks after the President Muhammadu Buhari, unveiled the new bills at a weekly Federal Executive Council meeting in Aso Rock Villa.

The President unveiled the redesigned notes across the N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations.

The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had in October announced that apex bank would release re-designed naira notes by December 15, 2022.

He also disclosed that the old notes would cease to be regarded as legal tender by January 31, 2023.

Emefiele pointed out that the redesigning of the naira notes would help to curb counterfeit notes, and reduce ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.

The CBN boss said it was worrisome that 85 per cent of the total currency in circulation was being hoarded by Nigerians.

As such, he said the redesigning of the local currency would help to mop up the currency outside the banking sector, adding that out of about N3.3tn in circulation, close to N2.75tn were outside the banking sector.

The newspaper says that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16bn or N16.25tn in 12 years, from 2009 to 2020, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, has said.

It disclosed this in a statement issued by its Head, Communications and Advocacy, Obiageli Onuorah.

It also welcomed the decision of the Federal Government to set up a Special Investigative Panel on Oil Theft and Losses in Nigeria, describing it as bold, courageous and timely, given the havoc the menace had wrecked in oil production and the country’s revenue generation.

Nigeria’s crude oil losses, according to NEITI, were basically from theft and sabotage, according to information and data provided by an average of eight companies covered by NEITI’s process over the…

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Nigerian Government Warns Of New Iran-based Hacking Group Targeting Telecoms Companies

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called the attention of the Nigerian public to the existence of another hacking group orchestrating cyber espionage in the African telecoms space.
NCC issued the warning saying that efforts were on to keep stakeholders in the country’s telecoms sector informed, educate and protected.





The commission identified an Iranian hacking group known as Lyceum (also known as Hexane, Siamesekitten, or Spirlin) to have reportedly been targeting telecoms, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in Africa with upgraded malware in a recent politically motivated attacks oriented in cyberespionage.
The information about this cyber attack is contained in the latest advisory issued by the Nigerian Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT). 
The ngCERT rated the probability and damage level of the new malware as high.
According to the advisory, the hacking group is known to be focused on infiltrating the networks of telecoms companies and ISPs. 
Between July and October 2021, Lyceum was reportedly implicated in attacks against ISPs and telecoms organisations in Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.
The advanced persistent threat (APT) group has been linked to campaigns that hit Middle Eastern oil and gas companies in the past.
The group now appears to have expanded its focus to the technology sector. 
The APT is also responsible for a campaign against an unnamed African government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
By the attackers’ mode of operation, Lyceum’s initial onslaught vectors include credential stuffing and brute-force attacks. So, once a victim’s system is compromised, the attackers conduct surveillance on specific targets. In that mode, Lyceum will attempt to deploy two different kinds of malware: Shark and Milan (known together as James).
Both malware are backdoors. Shark, a 32-bit executable written in C# and .NET, generates a configuration file for domain name system (DNS) tunnelling or Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) C2 communications; whereas Milan – a 32-bit Remote Access Trojan (RAT) retrieves data.
Both are able to communicate with the group’s command-and-control (C2) servers. The…

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Police Arrest Nigerian Fraudster Who Stole N1.87Billion After Hacking Into Bank’s Server

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Detectives from the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have arrested an alleged fraudster, Salau Abdulmalik Femi over N1.87 billion fraud.

The 35-year-old suspect, according to the police, is the kingpin of a syndicate that specialises in hacking into the servers of banks and corporate agencies to steal.

The police further disclosed that the suspect, who had displayed mastery of the cyber environment, was nabbed after he hacked into the Flex-Cube Universal Banking System (FCUBS) of a first generation bank.

The spokesman for the SFU, Ikoyi, Lagos, DSP Eyitayo Johnson, in a statement, said the suspect, using application software, created imaginary credits totalling N1.87 billion on the accounts of three of the bank’s customers.

Johnson said the suspect successfully completed debits (outflows) amounting to N417.5 million through internet banking transfers to other banks.

He said the unit, while acting promptly on a petition from the bank, communicated with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the deposit money banks whose customers were beneficiaries of the fraudulent funds and that in the process was able to salvage a substantial amount.

“Items recovered from the suspect include an Apple laptop and an iPhone, and he and operators of some Bureaux De Change (BDC) used to launder the monies will be charged to court as soon as an investigation is concluded.

“Consequently, the Commissioner of Police in charge of the unit, Anderson A. Bankole, has scheduled a meeting with Chief Compliance Officers/and Heads of Technology/Information Security departments of banks with a view to brainstorm on the loophole exploited by this suspect and how to counter similar hacks for the benefit of both the police and the banking sector of our economy,” Johnson said.

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Nigerian Instagram star helped North Korean hackers in $1.3B scheme: Feds

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A Nigerian Instagram star conspired with North Korean hackers to steal more than $1.3 billion from companies and banks in the U.S. and other countries, federal prosecutors said.

Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, 37, also known as “Ray Hushpuppi,” is being accused of helping three North Korean computer hackers steal the funds from companies and banks, including one in Malta, in February 2019, according to the Justice Department.

“North Korea’s operatives, using keyboards rather than guns, stealing digital wallets of cryptocurrency instead of sacks of cash, are the world’s leading bank robbers,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement on Feb. 17.

Abbas — who has 2.5 million followers on Instagram, where he would post photos of his luxury cars — somehow found time for still more banking-related crimes, the feds say.

He worked with Ghaleb Alaumary, 37, a Canadian who was charged with laundering millions of dollars from ATMs in the U.S. and Pakistan and a bank in India, prosecutors say.

Last July, the Nigerian national was arrested in still another, separate case.

He was extradited from Dubai to the U.S. where he was charged with “laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from business email compromise (BEC) frauds and other scams, including schemes targeting a US law firm, a foreign bank and an English Premier League soccer club,” according to the Justice Department.

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