The Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) and the Mastercard Foundation have announced a historic $45 million partnership named MADIBA (Manufacturing in Africa for Disease Immunization and Building Autonomy), a significant step towards achieving vaccine manufacturing autonomy in Africa. The multi-year project, aimed at developing and building a world-class workforce to support vaccine manufacturing, will establish a Centre of Training Excellence to equip talented young people, particularly young women, with specialized skills in vaccine research, manufacturing, production, and distribution.
Based in Senegal, MADIBA aligns with the “Plan Sénégal Émergent” (Emerging Senegal Plan) to manufacture half of the country’s pharmaceutical products by 2035 as well as the African Union’s ambitious target to fulfill 60 percent of the continent’s vaccine needs by 2040. As a blueprint for future vaccine manufacturing facilities across Africa, MADIBA marks a crucial first step towards vaccine self-sufficiency in Africa.
In February 2023, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) launched the Regional Capability and Capacity Centre Network (RCCCN), focusing on talent development for manufacturing and research, and selected IPD as its inaugural centre.
Institut Pasteur de Dakar and Mastercard Foundation announce to expand workforce for vaccine manufacturing in Africa
Cyberattacks and Zombie Machines
Amin Hasbini is Head of META Research Center – Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team. Dr. Mohamad Amin Hasbini joined Kaspersky in 2013 as a Senior Security Researcher in the Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT). He is now head of the same research center for the META region. Amin is responsible for Kaspersky’s expert positioning, research expansion, and knowledge maturity in four regional offices. He has a PHD in smart cities information security from the Brunel University in London.Prior to joining Kaspersky, Amin was a senior consultant at Deloitte and Touche Middle East. Before that, he worked as a senior security Engineer at DataConsult in Lebanon.
Dr. Hasbini worked on numerous large-scale defensive infrastructure deployments, industrial and consulting projects for government entities, banks, service providers, oil and gas companies, and others. He has also taught security courses in forensics, malware analysis and ethical hacking.
Amin is specialized in wide-scale cyber-defense and anti-APT tools and techniques. He has written a number of publications on advanced malware operations and smart cities security, presented at more than 100 conferences worldwide and received numerous accolades.
Kaspersky, the multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider, has released new data from its Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) showing which countries in the world are being most affected by online threats during the recent GITEX Africa conference, held in Morocco.
At the event, Amin Hasbini, expanded on several cyber threat trends. He cautioned business and technology leaders about two primary forms of cyberattacks – criminal and advanced. Capital’s Groum Abate caught up with him to talk about the threats of cyberattacks and its solutions. The following are excerpts from the candid interview;
Capital: What are the main differences between criminal attacks and advanced attacks?
Amin Hasbini: Criminal attacks: Typically carried out by individuals or small groups with limited resources and technical expertise. Their primary motive is immediate financial gain or personal vendettas. They usually come out with low to medium sophistication and sometimes cooperate on the web underground to achieve bigger objectives, e.g., targeting a large organization.
Advanced attacks: Carried out by well-funded and highly skilled individuals or organized groups. They employ sophisticated techniques and often have a specific target or objective, such as espionage, sabotage, or intellectual property theft.
Capital: How do attackers access vulnerable financial institutions and how do they abuse them?
Amin Hasbini: Attackers utilize a variety of methods to access and abuse financial institutions, such as:
- Exploiting vulnerabilities in software or systems.
- Directing phishing attacks to trick employees into revealing sensitive information.
- Exploiting weak passwords or authentication.
- Using social engineering techniques to gain unauthorized access.
- Deploying malware or backdoors to gain control over systems.
Once inside, attackers can abuse financial institutions by stealing funds, manipulating transactions, conducting fraudulent activities, or compromising customer data.
Capital: What is crypto jacking?
Amin Hasbini: Crypto jacking refers to the unauthorized use of someone’s computer or devices to mine cryptocurrencies. Attackers use malicious software or scripts to abuse the processing power of victims’ devices, often without their knowledge or consent. The mining activities consume system resources and can impact performance and energy consumption.
Capital: How do attackers launder money?
Amin Hasbini: Cyber attackers utilize different methods to launder money, such as:
- Layering: Complex transactions are conducted to obscure the origin of illicit funds by moving them through multiple accounts or financial institutions in multiple countries or regions around the world.
- Integration: The laundered funds are reintroduced into the financial system, appearing as legitimate assets or transactions.
- Placement: Illicit funds are initially placed into the financial system, often via cash deposits or through other means to make it tough to trace the origin of the money.
Capital: You showed data for 2023 about Ethiopia, 18,000 exploit that allow access to 30,000 ransomware, what does this mean?
Amin Hasbini: Exploits abuse software vulnerabilities or weaknesses that are leveraged by attackers to gain unauthorized access, control systems, or execute malicious code. Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts victims’ files or systems, demanding a ransom payment in exchange for the decryption key. Banker malware is a type of malware specifically designed to target financial institutions, steal login credentials, capture sensitive information, or manipulate transactions. Numbers are significant in Ethiopia and the country is becoming more attractive for cyber attackers, specifically in April and May 2023, traces from our underground monitoring pointed out a hacker team called Mysterious Team Bangladesh (MTB) has targeted the online services of at least 10 Ethiopian governmental, energy and banking institutions with distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks can take down the online services of these entities, blocking users and clients from accessing them, sometimes for hours and up to days or weeks… Other underground traces pointing to Ethiopian organizations and users being targeted with different kinds of cyber threats, such as ransomware, personal data theft or data leaks, have also been seen.
Capital: Can you tell me how much Ethiopia losses to cyberattacks from 2019 onwards until now?
Amin Hasbini: Many cyber-attacks stay hidden or go unnoticed, it’s hard to estimate the cost of these, some examples were mentioned above, yet every institution can estimate the cost of them being cut out of service and/or having data stolen or leaked, the damage is not limited to financial losses, but extends to reputation and impact on critical infrastructure or national security as well.
Capital: From Where are the major attacks on Ethiopia generate or from what group?
Amin Hasbini: Different and varied cyber attacks have been witnessed in Ethiopia, from traditional cybercriminal gangs, or from advanced attacker groups such as CloudComputating which has targeted Ethiopia multiple times in the past few years. Some of these attacks are sourced from the region and some are global.
Capital: What are Zombie machines and what are their effects?
Amin Hasbini: Zombie machines, also known as botnets, are compromised computers or devices that are under the control of an attacker. Their effects include:
- Being used to launch large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against specific targets, overwhelming their servers and causing service disruption.
- Sending out spam emails or spreading malware to other devices.
- Participating in cryptojacking activities, contributing computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies without the owner’s consent.
Capital: African financial institutions are vulnerable for outside attacks, what is the solution as these attacks will increase in time?
Amin Hasbini: The solution to enhance the security posture of African financial institutions against outside attacks includes:
-Implementing strong cybersecurity measures, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption. At kaspersky we offer multiple protections for businesses and organizations, small or big like Kaspersky EDR Optimum or Kaspersky EDR Expert for instance.
- Regularly patching and updating software and systems to address vulnerabilities.
- Conducting comprehensive security audits and risk assessments.
- Developing and enforcing robust security policies and procedures.
- Providing cybersecurity awareness training to employees like for instance the one we offer at Kaspersky
- Collaborating with industry peers and sharing threat intelligence to stay informed about emerging threats.
- Engaging with cybersecurity experts or managed security service providers for specialized support.
Capital: Does Kaspersky help African institutions in fighting cybercrimes?
Amin Hasbini: Kaspersky’s job has always been to protect his clients all over the world in fighting cybercrime, by providing security technologies and/or sharing information, providing trainings, awareness etc. Hence, we provide security solutions addressing different types of issues and profiles: SMBs solutions, Enterprises, Industries.. we also provide threat intelligence resources which help our clients to understand and better protect themselves against the different cyberthreats that might target them – or the industry.
Regarding institutions, recently (Nov 2022), Kaspersky announced that the company has contributed to INTERPOL’s Africa Cyber Surge Operation (ACSO) by sharing data, comprising of indicators of compromise (IoCs) on various cyberthreats and types of cybercriminal activity targeting African countries. This evidence provided the grounds for a series of operational and investigative activities against the threat actors behind the cybercrimes and their malicious infrastructure.
Capital: In your opinion how do you see African financial institutions ability to fight cyber crimes in the next couple of years?
Amin Hasbini: Assessing the ability of African financial institutions to fight cybercrimes in the next few years is subject to various factors and challenges. However, with the increasing awareness of cybersecurity risks and the evolving threat landscape, it is expected that institutions will take steps to improve their defenses. Collaboration among stakeholders, investment in cybersecurity technologies and expertise, and adherence to best practices will play crucial roles in enhancing the resilience of African financial institutions against cybercrimes.
AFRICA NEEDS ITS OWN IDEOLOGY
Ideology is nothing more than a set of principles (considered or not) internalized by individuals or communities, explicitly stated or not. The current negative connotation associated with the word ‘ideology’ is (to a large extent) a legacy of rigid political, religious, etc., doctrines of the recent past, like Marxism, Nazism, Fundamentalism, etc. Acknowledged or not, the reigning global ideology is neoliberalism or unfettered capitalism, more to the point. Under (almost) half a century of its rule, a lot has changed globally. Its neglect or outright violence against nature stands out as its major crime. Inequality within countries and polarization between nation-states is another hallmark of its legacy, to say nothing about perennial wars on which it voracious feeds. As a result, the world is now in a state of chaos, threatening to become unmanageable. Many have no clue as to what to do, including the putative African states!
Africa needs a new ideology, perforce! Those of us residing in the periphery of the prevailing world system still have a fighting chance to redefine what social existence ought to be, based on the natural tendency of all creatures, which is, the sustenance/reproduction of God-given lives. In this regard, the core countries of the world system, i.e., the materially rich nations of the OECD are, (probably) in a more difficult position than us, as they have been wholly incorporated within the inhumane logic of capital; physically, intellectually, emotionally, materially, culturally, spiritually, etc. The alienation capital has bestowed on them has left them atomized and powerless, especially when it comes to challenging the ‘unnaturalness’ of their social being. It has been and still is a taboo to question the merit of many of the diktats of capital, monopoly or otherwise. Consequently, a good portion of the Western sheeple has decided to forgo some of the key prerogatives of its natural existence. For instance, procreation, which is the defining characteristic of all life forms, is becoming anathema (almost) to the average sheeple in the OECD, because of non-conducive socio-economic reality on the ground. When such an insensitive social system of superficial contraptions denies the sheeple the very life force of existence, the whole charade must be severely interrogated! The sheeple’s failure or put another way, the stifling characteristic of the system, particularly when it comes to asserting the fundamentals of life, has become increasingly disturbing. Encouraging the sheeple to passionately engage in useless/frivolous activities, while forcing it to negate the basics of life says a lot about the system’s capacity to completely subjugate the population’s psyches. This system is inherently vile and evil!
The real question for Africans remains; do we have what it takes (the C’s) to eject ourselves from this dominant global ideology that systemically enslaves humanity for the sole benefit of accumulation/profit. We believe our new ideology should come about via; Commitment, Confidence, Competence, Compassion, Cooperation… These are amongst the basic ingredients needed to foster a more democratic, a more egalitarian, a more peaceful and a more resiliently sustainable existence. Commitment to have the fortitude to propagate life; Confidence not to be swayed by detractors, and to hold on to our Commitment with tenacity; Competence to achieve the task at hand by forging all round capability built on formidable foresight; Compassion to accept the inherent fallibility of humanity, in all its forms; and Cooperation to solidify harmony within diversity. We agree these are not easy to come by, but since we’ve got nothing to lose we might as well give it a go! Once such initiatives are seriously initiated, Africa can earnestly tackle the challenges of survival based on a different and more humane ideology, with a view to create livable societies, not only to ourselves! Granted, there will be immense obstacles along this difficult journey, but the high level of internalized Commitment should see us through, hopefully! As it stands, our blind submission to crass consumerism will only lead to more unmet desires (not needs) and to even more unmet satisfactions. Fulfillment remains a chimera to many a sheeple in our fast collapsing world system, despite increased nihilistic gluttony across the globe! Again and to be sure, the whole project will not be easy to pull off, as the gatekeepers of inhumanely derived capital, the psychopaths/sociopaths, will be up in arms to frustrate the humane initiative.
A good portion of the challenge to the above project will come from our learned experts, deployed as useful operators by the bosses of the world system. On its own, this will be a formidable challenge, as majority of our leading elites (not only the political ones) are fully assimilated into the numbed and non-thinking existence of blindly worshipping material affluence. In other words, outside of their gadgets and phony conveniences, our elites have become, just like their contemporaries in the OECD, mere consuming zombies! In the words of a philosopher, ‘sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.’ Friedrich Nietzsche. Therefore and for a start, we need to detox our learned experts or what the movers and shakers of the world system furtively call the ‘useful idiots’. These functionaries of the global order, despite their incessant rhetoric, are not in a position to challenge the dominant global ideology on their own, because: 1) they benefit (superficially) from the existing setup and do not want to rock the boat by engaging in serious queries. Or 2) they are sufficiently brainwashed not to see the obvious contradiction between the life force of natural humans and the artificially imposed system of profit that is willing to destroy anything and everything that is on its way. Or 3) some literally fear for their lives, as this is a very subversive move and won’t be tolerated by the power that be; admittedly a very valid concern, given how the ‘deep state’ of the powerful countries operate with absolute impunity! Or, Or, Or,….
This was first published in April 2017
Selam Bank ‘Is not to be!’
Frustration, uncertainty engulfs investors
The much anticipated unveiling of the under formation mortgage bank, Selam bank, falls through the cracks.
The founders agreed with Goh-Betoch Bank to transfer its shareholders.
Selam bank which was well on its way to becoming the second mortgage bank following Goh Betoch bank was backed by most influential leaders from various industries, including media, business, and real estate elite including Bethlehem Thilahun, Aman Feshetsion, the founder of EBS TV, Zemedeneh Negatu, head of Fairfax Africa Fund Ethiopia and Yared Alemayehu of Walia Tannery.
After facing delays from its initial plan to start share selling in late 2019, the bank faced further delays resulting from the pandemic, and started officially selling its share in May 2021. It then promised to launch its operation 5 months from May 2021 aiming to meet the huge housing demand in Addis Ababa and other towns through introducing new construction technologies and innovations at affordable prices, to finance 100,000 affordable mortgages totaling ETB 200 billion in the next 5 years
Now, the bank is planning to transfer its shareholders to Goh-Betoch Bank.
Bethlehem Tilahun, one of the founders of the bank informed Capital that they have gained permission from the regulator, National Bank of Ethiopia, to go ahead with the process. However, she declined from giving further information on the matter.
It is said that Selam Bank’s shares had a par value of 1,000 Br, with a minimum purchase of 10 shares required to join, while the maximum amount an individual could buy amounted to 100,000 shares. The bank was also planning to raise a paid-up capital of five billion birr of which two billion was before the opening its doors to customers.
Now, Goh-Betoch has taken over Selam’s shareholders, which has been welcomed as a positive step towards salvaging some of the investments made by individuals and businesses.
Mulugeta Asmare, president of Goh told capital that after the request of Selam Bank, Goh bank’s board approved the request.
“Since we are currently selling shares, it is okay for Goh, if they join individually or as a corporate,” the president said whilst indicating that the number and amount of shareholders and shares are yet to be seen.
Sources who spoke to Capital now accuse the bank for going silent on shareholders on updates of the bank, “The bank had a promising start, with its share sale generating significant interest and enthusiasm from the public. The bank had set an ambitious goal of collecting two billion Ethiopian birr in capital, and it appeared well on track to achieving it. The bank’s active and rapid promotion had also raised hopes that it would be a serious contender in Ethiopia’s mortgage banking industry. The situation has left many wondering about the future and what it could mean for Ethiopia’s mortgage banking industry.”
Though there could be several potential reasons for Selam Bank’s sudden silence, as sources indicate, one possible reason could be that the bank is facing internal issues, such as management or operational challenges that have hindered its ability to operate including economic factors, which can hamper the bank’s operations.
“Regardless of the reason for the bank’s silence, it is crucial for Selam Bank to provide its stakeholders with regular updates and maintain transparent communication channels. The lack of communication has caused frustration and uncertainty, which could negatively impact the bank’s reputation and investor confidence,” lamented sources.
Goh is the first and the only private mortgage bank since 70s which started its operation in October 2021 with a capital of 1.2 billion birr.
By way of simple definition, a mortgage bank is a bank specializing in mortgage loans. It can be involved in originating or servicing mortgage loans, or both. The banks’ loan their own capital to borrowers and either collect payments in installments along with a certain rate of interest or sell their loans in the secondary market.
