technology news
Fibre Cable Connecting South Africa to Mauritius is Operational Thanks to Emtel
Image sourced from @philBE on Twitter Emtel has provided the official landing point – a ANSI/TIA tier 3 certified data centre – for the METISS (Meltingpot Indianoceanic Submarine System) fibre optic cable in Mauritius – this will see the country connected to Reunion Island, Madagascar and South Africa via a 3,200 km cable. “METISS is already connected to many global public cloud services, application providers and African exchanges with fully redundant backhaul in Mauritius and South Africa,” says Kresh Goomany, CEO of Emtel. “It provides global telecoms organisations, multinationals and enterprises with interests in connected regions, with the reliable services and capacities they need for telecommunications that empower digital enterprises. The whole offer comes with a world-class qualit...
Twitter to Build African HQ in Ghana
Image sourced from Mission Statement Academy Twitter is set to base its African headquarters in Ghana. According to Business Insider, the social media company is hoping to fill 12 positions and will hold off on opening a physical office until the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. 🇬🇭 Twitter is now present on the continent. Thank you Ghana and @NAkufoAddo. #TwitterGhana https://t.co/tt7KR3kvDg — jack (@jack) April 12, 2021 Twitter chose the West African country because of its commitment to freedom of speech. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_4a4.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_4a4.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate,” reads a stateme...
14.3 Million South African Facebook Users Implicated by Data Breach
On April 3, Business Insider uncovered how more than 530 million Facebook users personal information had been made publicly available in an unsecured database – this included names, email addresses, and phone numbers. And now, VPN provider Surfshark has revealed that of the affected users, Egypt is the number one victim of this hack with the accounts of 45.1 million users being exposed while 14.3 million users were South African. In general, the top 10 countries by breaches make up 50% of all the breach cases – and of those cases, fewer than 10% of the profiles had their addresses exposed. On the other hand, nearly 90% of the users suffered from phone number leaks /* custom css */ .tdi_3_009.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_009.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Faceb...
Kaspersky Discovers Zero-Day Exploit in Desktop Window Manager
Sourced from International IDEA Kaspersky has discovered another zero-day exploit, however, researchers are currently unable to link this exploit to any known threat actor. This kind of vulnerability is basically an unknown software bug – upon identification and discovery, they allow attackers to conduct malicious activities in the shadows, resulting in unexpected and destructive consequences. While analysing the CVE-2021-1732 exploit, Kaspersky researchers found another such zero-day exploit and reported it to Microsoft in February. After confirmation that it is indeed a zero-day, it received the designation CVE-2021-28310. According to the researchers, this exploit is used in the wild, potentially by several threat actors. It is an escalation of privilege (EoP) exploit, found in Desktop ...
Luno Records $8.3 Billion in Transactions Worldwide
Luno has recorded $8.3 billion in transactions worldwide after recently adding nearly a million new South African customers to its crypto platform. An estimated 15% of South Africans have invested in bitcoin – the second-highest percentage in the world according to the Global Web Index, beating even the USA and Japan. With over 2.1 million users in South Africa, Luno has around the same number of clients as South African Twitter users according to Statistica. It’s also the fifth most popular finance app on iPhone and third on Android – ahead of most of Africa’s biggest banks. A three-month average reveals that more than 145,000 South Africans installed the Luno app each month from November 2020 – January 2021. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_090.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_090.td-a-rec...
Torn Between Cloud and On-Premise File Sharing? Here’s a Solution for SMBs that Won’t Break the Bank
Graph I. Many SMBs having a hard time deciding between SaaS and on-premise solutions such as traditional File Server and Network Attached Storage The need for digital transformation has never been clearer as companies of all sizes now face an immediate challenge of employees working remotely. The year 2020 has changed the way we work, we had no other options but to move from offline to online. It can be hard to find great IT products that allow you to have a smooth and seamless shift, and to safely: store, share, and collaborate on files from anywhere. Furthermore, we commonly see many SMBs having a hard time deciding between SaaS and on-premise solutions such as traditional File Server and Network Attached Storage (NAS). I am glad to let you know that we have collected and digested many c...
South Africa Halts Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
South African Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize has announced that the country would temporarily halt its Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine rollout. This follows the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) temporary suspension of the vaccine in the United States after six recipients developed a rare blood-clotting disorder. According to The New York Times, all six recipients were women aged between 18 and 48, and each of them developed the illness within one to three weeks of vaccination. “We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” says Dr Peter Marks, FDA Director for Biologics Evaluation and Research. As it stands, no South African recipients have reported experiencing blood clots following the vaccine. However, Mkhize says that they will ...
How a Prepaid Electricity Sub-Meter can Assist with Letting Out Properties
As we reached the recent one-year anniversary of South Africans entering the first days of lockdown at the end of March 2020, we remembered how holidays at this time last year were universally cancelled because of fears of the COVID-19 virus. One year on, it is sombre to review the past 12 months, yet we are nonetheless able to start considering new opportunities for family holidays once again. We have observed the increase in domestic travel towards the end of 2020, and with the implementation of Level One restrictions, people are feeling more comfortable about potentially taking a local break. As we approach the 2021 April school holiday season for state schools (which close on Friday 23 April and reopen on Monday 3 May), many of us are preparing for a short break. Statistics have shown ...
Your Data has Left the Building: Don’t Let it Take You on a Bumpy Ride
“Ladies and gentlemen: Michael Jackson has left the stadium.” These are the dramatic words spoken just after Michael Jackson, one of the most famous performers and entertainers in history, flew off the stage at the end of his 1992 – 1993 ‘Dangerous’ tour. It was one of the smoothest and most awe-inspiring endings to a stadium performance the world had ever seen – and Jackson did it for concert after concert during that spectacular global tour. However, as was later revealed, the truth is that Michael Jackson didn’t actually fly out of any stadiums via a jetpack – it was a professional stuntman in his place. So, it wasn’t really correct to think that the King of Pop had left the building. But it surely is correct, nearly 30 years later, to know that your data has certainly left the bu...
SendSpend Launches Across Sub-Sahara Africa
Image sourced from Sara Fuerte SendSpend has officially launched its global payment system which enables the unbanked to pay online and remit money instantly to each other using only a smartphone. Simply put, millions of unbanked customers throughout Africa with an Internet connection and access to a smartphone will soon be able to use SendSpend, a payment system not restricted to a particular mobile network or financial institution. The platform, which is now available in South Africa, is entirely digital and free for consumers, who can use SendSpend within minutes of registering via a downloaded App. “SendSpend is committed to enhance and uplift the lives of people in underserved local communities. Financial inclusion is a primary focus in achieving one of the UN’s Sustainable Developmen...
Ericsson and Unitel Partner to Expand Telco Network in Angola
Unitel Angola and Ericsson have signed a three-year agreement for the supply of Radio System solutions as well as core solutions and related services. The Radio & 5G ready core expansions are expected to enable Unitel to meet increasing data demands of customers in the Angolan market. The agreement sees the expansion of Ericsson’s Packet Core and User Data Consolidation network and readiness for 5G non-standalone services. Unitel’s Business Support Systems (BSS) will be upgraded and enhanced to enable catalogue-driven charging across its services and prepare itself for the introduction of innovative Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) 5G products and services. Using these solutions, Unitel’s network performance will improve to meet growing end-user expectatio...
MTN Ranked as Best Mobile Network in South Africa
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN has been ranked as the best mobile network in South Africa – ahead of Vodacom, rain, Telkom and Cell C – according to the latest MyBroadband Insights Mobile Network Quality Report. The report is based on 349,575 speed tests that were performed by thousands of users across the country. The research shows that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 33.23Mbps and an average upload speed of 12.71Mbps. MTN had the highest average download speed at 64.29Mbps, followed by Vodacom on 32.76Mbps, Telkom on 27.83Mbps, Cell C on 20.82Mbps and Rain on 10.58Mbps. MTN’s exceptional performance is a result of a R50-billion infrastructure investment over the past five years to extend coverage, improve network quality, and increase...
