Malam Balarabe Ilelah, Director-General of NBC, issued the warning during a meeting with broadcast stations about coverage of the presidential, national assembly, gubernatorial, and state assembly elections.

“NBC is giving its last warning to broadcast stations and will not hesitate to shut or revoke the license of any when convinced that its activities are capable of undermining the peaceful co-existence of the country.

“Any further breaches of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code and Act will no longer be tolerated,’’ he warned.

He stated that the Commission monitored some broadcast stations’ coverage of the elections and was concerned that some of them gave unpatriotic individuals air time to make subversive, hateful, and inciting statements, particularly post-election.

He noted, however, that the coverage of the elections and post-election matters were “marred by unguarded statements, divisive and dangerous comments”.

In these troubling times, the NBC DG noted that the media has a role to play in ensuring national development by publishing or broadcasting narratives of national reconciliation and healing.

He urged broadcasters to refrain from promoting negative conversations that are not only harmful to democracy but also pose a threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence.

He acknowledged that using broadcast platforms to incite supporters or create enmity would not help in deepening the nation’s democracy.

“In as much as the Commission believes in the freedom of expression, it is also seriously constrained to act decisively on any broadcaster that exploits the fragile peace of our nation,’’ he stressed.

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In response to a series of cybersecurity alerts issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Patrick Ede, the Head of the ICT Division at PPC Nigeria, while speaking in Lagos, said cyber-criminals were now using sophisticated tools to take control of outdated IT systems and gain remote access to important customer data.

The implication of this, according to him, is that organizations whose security has been breached will experience disruption of critical operations, loss of revenue and important data.

He stated that the credibility and reputational damage the activities of malicious hackers cause were often irreversible adding that neglect of vulnerabilities in IT systems would hamper overall business performance.

The NCC’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) issued different security alerts in the past months, urging Nigerians to be wary of five malicious Google Chrome Extensions, compromised apps and vulnerabilities in specific antivirus products that secretly track users’ activities online and compromise their data.

The telecoms regulator said the malwares, which have high damage potential, have been downloaded multiple times by unsuspecting people and consequently jeopardizing the privacy of users.

“Businesses are confronting new security threats arising from unprecedented global technology adoption and a hybrid work culture. These criminals explore the vulnerabilities in new and existing technology installations to launch their attacks,” Ede said.

He added, “It has become imperative for organizations to rethink how they address security concerns. Regular upgrade of software and hardware infrastructure should be included in cybersecurity measures to minimize risk of breaches.  Software is not perfect and loopholes are often exploited by threat actors. Therefore, businesses must plan to deploy patches immediately a security risk is announced by the vendor.

“While there has been a lot of focus on software updates, physical technology devices such as workstations and servers that are slow or have stopped receiving vendor updates, need to be replaced to mitigate risk of data breaches. Most end-of-life hardware infrastructure is not interoperable with new software installations and as such, the software requires an updated hardware to run it.”

PPC Nigeria’s expertise in the deployment of best-in-class ICT and engineering solutions has assisted several organizations in the public and private sectors to create a secured and collaborative work environment.

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