The reality is that most companies are not well-positioned to turn these data sets into insights to make better business decisions and store and protect them from cyberattacks.

At this year’s Huawei IT Day (Nigeria), experts from different sectors across the country converged at Oriental Hotel, on Lagos Island to discuss “Unleashing Data Power Toward the Yottabyte Era”.

The event presented an opportunity for the leading global technology company, Huawei, to showcase some of its innovative products, cutting-edge solutions, and successful experiences together with experts from customers and partners.

Some of these products include – Huawei’s Enterprise Data Storage, Convergence Infrastructure, OceanStor Dorado All-Flash Storage, Multilayer Ransomware Protection（MRP), Huawei Hybrid Cloud (Huawei public cloud and Huawei cloud stack), and others.

In his welcome speech, the CEO of Huawei Nigeria, Chris Lu, said there had been an explosion of data over the years, which presents an opportunity for businesses to start processing and harnessing data to boost revenue.

He said some industries and companies use data as a strategic and foundational resource to achieve fast space growth for their businesses “As we enter the yottabyte era, data applications are multiplying, making trustworthiness and reliability a key component of data infrastructure. At Huawei, “we currently have 12 Research and Development (R&D) centers, over 4000 R&D engineers, and 3000 patents dedicated to storage, helping businesses across the globe,” Lu said.

Huawei’s resilience as an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) has had a tremendous impact on businesses while it continues to develop new technologies.

It is also on record that technology companies and some of the top leading financial institutions in the world use Huawei’s Enterprise Storage. This also includes other solutions such as network, security, disaster recovery, etc.

Since Huawei’s business operations in Nigeria began more than 20 years ago, it has worked with the Telcos to ensure that every Nigerian has quality access to phone and internet coverage throughout the country.

On the issue of data infrastructure transformation trend – Huawei F2F2X (Flash To Flash To Anything), Principal Storage Architect, Enterprise Storage Solution, Tang Zhihao, said Ocean Protect is an all-flash system that offers lightning-quick performance with a consistent backup and recovery time window.

Zhihao said F2F2X would redefine dedicated backup storage as a flash-based system, and facilitate new opportunities for businesses.

At the conference, Regional Coordinator, Southwest, Galaxy Backbone (GBB), Dauda Oyeleye, said Huawei has recorded significant achievements contributing to the development of ICT in Nigeria through collaboration with the Nigerian government and other industry players.

Oyeleye chronicled the milestones of Galaxy Backbone-an agency specialized in hosting, cloud computing, EDMS, data center, and consulting services for organizations of all sizes since it commenced its partnership with Huawei.

“We have leveraged the technology provided by Huawei to drive the digital transformation agenda and accelerate business innovation,” he added.

GBB has been in existence since 2006, providing network management, communications, and digital infrastructure services to organizations in the public and private sectors.

He expressed great delight in the partnership, assuring that before the end of 2023, Galaxy Backbone will add additional IT services to its catalog.

The vulnerabilities primarily affect Lenovo Products (Desktop, Desktop-All in One, Hyperscale, Lenovo Notebook, Smart Office, Storage, ThinkAgile, ThinkPad, ThinkServer, ThinkStation, and ThinkSystem).

The Nigerian Communications Commission’s Computer Security Incident Response Team (NCC-CSIRT), in its recent advisory, rated the probability of the vulnerability as high with an equally high damage potential. It, therefore, urged users of affected products to update their firmware.

The advisory cited the Lenovo report, first published in the second week of this month, indicating that the vulnerabilities are caused by flaws in the System Management Interrupt (SMI) Set BIOS Password SMI Handler, other systems used to configure platform settings over Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and a buffer overflow flaw in WMI SMI Handler.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerabilities could allow an authenticated local attacker to bypass security restrictions, gain elevated privileges and execute arbitrary code on the targeted system.

The attacker could also send a specially crafted request to the targeted user to gain sensitive information, which could result in unauthorized Information disclosure, privilege escalation and denial of service on the targeted system.

According to NCC-CSIRT, the solution to addressing the vulnerabilities is for users to update their system firmware to the newer version(s) indicated for their product model.

The CSIRT is the telecom sector’s cyber security incidence centre set up by the NCC to focus on incidents in the telecom sector and as they may affect telecom consumers and citizens at large.

The CSIRT also works collaboratively with the Nigeria Computer Emergency Response Team (ngCERT), established by the Federal Government to reduce the volume of future computer risk incidents by preparing, protecting, and securing Nigerian cyberspace to forestall attacks, and problems or related events.