NEWS DIGEST–Phishing is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers.

A phishing attack happens when someone tries to trick you into sharing personal information online.

Phishing is usually done through email, ads or by sites that look similar to sites that you already use. For example, someone who is phishing might send you an email that looks like it’s from your bank so that you’ll give them information about your bank account.

How to identify Phishing emails

Phishing emails or sites might ask for:
• Usernames and passwords, including password changes
• National Insurance numbers
• Bank account numbers
• PINs (Personal Identification Numbers)
• Credit card numbers
• Your mother’s maiden name
• Your date of birth

How to avoid phishing attacks

Be careful any time that you get an email from a site asking for personal information. If you get this type of email:
• Don’t click any links or provide personal information until you’ve confirmed that the email is real.
• If the sender has a Gmail or Yahoo address, report the Gmail abuse to Google or Yahoo.

When you get an email that looks suspicious, here are a few things to check for:

• Check that the email address and the sender name match.
• Check whether the email is authenticated.
• Hover over any links before you click on them. If the URL of the link doesn’t match the description of the link, it might be leading you to a phishing site.
• Check the message headers to make sure that the ‘from’ header isn’t showing an incorrect name.

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NEWS DIGEST – Twitter on Wednesday released data on foreign influence campaigns on its platform showing some 10 million tweets, mostly from Russia, dating back as far as 2009.

California-based Twitter said it was releasing detailed data on previously disclosed misinformation efforts to allow researchers to gain more insight into the campaigns.

“In line with our strong principles of transparency and with the goal of improving understanding of foreign influence and information campaigns, we are releasing the full, comprehensive archives of the tweets and media that are connected with these two previously disclosed and potentially state-backed operations on our service,” said a statement from Twitter trust and safety chief Vijaya Gadde and site integrity head Yoel Roth.

“We are making this data available with the goal of encouraging open research and investigation of these behaviors from researchers and academics around the world.”

Twitter last year banned some Russia-based accounts accused of spreading misinformation during the 2016 US election, and earlier this year acknowledged that hundreds of accounts from Russia and Iran were engaged in manipulation efforts.

Facebook has uncovered similar efforts and has stepped up its efforts to curb foreign influence.

In Wednesday’s statement, Twitter said influence campaign efforts came from 3,841 accounts originating in Russia, and 770 potentially originating in Iran.

They included more than 10 million tweets and more than two million images and videos from as early as 2009.

“It is clear that information operations and coordinated inauthentic behavior will not cease,” Twitter said.

“These types of tactics have been around for far longer than Twitter has existed — they will adapt and change as the geopolitical terrain evolves worldwide and as new technologies emerge. For our part, we are committed to understanding how bad-faith actors use our services.”

Researchers at the Atlantic Council, who had early access to analyze the Twitter data, the influence campaigns sought to exploit vulnerabilities in a polarized electorate.

“The Russian and Iranian troll farm operations show that American society was deeply vulnerable, not to all troll farm operations, but to troll accounts of a particular type,” said a blog post from the group’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

“That type hid behind carefully crafted personalities, produced original and engaging content, infiltrated activist and engaged communities, and posted in hyper-partisan, polarizing terms.”

AFP

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NEWS DIGEST- A movie against drug abuse and drug addiction has premiered in Nigeria.

The movie which is written by Tayo Hamid Shittu, a student of Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto aims to enlighten young Nigerians on the hazard of improper use of drugs and addiction to drugs.

According to Hamid Shittu, the motivation to write the movie came from the urgent need to curb the increasing drug abuse and deaths from same.

“I am on a mission to make Nigerians understand the dangers of drug abuse especially our youths who are becoming addicted from time to time”.

The movie whose trailer is out on YouTube has the name “sides in Campus” and can be accessed on YouTube via

https://youtu.be/D6ExiC-EDxs or Instagram via: https://instagram.com/teepixel?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=k2zj4hcf1r4x .

This is coming at a time the Nigerian government has intensified efforts towards curbing drug abuse and illicit use.

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NEWS DIGEST–The UK Space Agency has joined the global campaign  to encourage girls to consider careers in space.
The UK Space Agency has helped produce a resource pack for schools to boost the recruitment of girls who typically do not choose subjects in their plus-16 years such as physics and engineering.
The “People like me” initiative aims to help girls understand the breadth of careers open to them in the space sector by introducing them to role models who are working in the field.
The women featured in the campaign come from different backgrounds and work in different areas across the space sector.
Alice Bunn, International Director at the UK Space Agency, said: “Like every other high-tech sector, space needs talented scientists and engineers, but with fewer women in science, we are missing out on half of the talented people on the planet.”
The UK Space Industry is working with an industry and university supported organisation Women into Science and Engineering (WISE), set up to boost talent growth in Britain.
It provides services to employers, educators and training providers.
“WISE enables and energizes people in business, industry and education to increase the participation, contribution and success of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM),” said a spokesperson for WISE.
Figures show girls remain under-represented across core science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, said the agency.
Recent research by the University of Roehampton has revealed that 30,000 fewer girls are studying key stage four level computing subjects compared to when the computing curriculum was introduced in Britain in 2014.

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NEWS DIGEST – Qatar on Monday said that the country had plans to produce first Qatari electric cars by 2023, local media reported.

The Qatari electric vehicles will be manufactured by the factory which will be established at a cost of nine billion dollars, said “Qatar Tribune” newspaper.

The project will be the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East as it is a whole new brand, said Ali al-Misnad, Chairman of the Qatar Quality company, which is responsible for this project.

Al-Misnad also said that the new giant project aims to manufacture more than 500,000 cars by 2024 with plans to export the electric vehicles to countries all over the world.

As part of the project, the plan will include establishing of six factories and each will be specialised in different production line.

(Xinhua/NAN)

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NEWS DIGEST – The world largest social media platform Facebook is losing a large number of young users as about one in four of them had removed the app from their smartphones in the past one year, a new Pew Research Center survey.

The survey found that a whopping 44 per cent of users aged between 18 and 29 have removed Facebook’s app from their phones in the past 12 months, and about 42 per cent have taken a break from checking the platform for several weeks or more.

The findings coincided with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s appearance before a U.S. Congress hearing on Wednesday on how Facebook addresses political content on the platform.

Facebook has been under heavy scrutiny for the way it handled privacy issues and misinformation activities over the past months since a scandal erupted earlier this year following revelations that a former British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had illegally accessed data of more than 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge.

The Pew surveyed more than 3,400 U.S. Facebook users in May and June, and found that more than 54 per cent of users aged 18 and older have adjusted their privacy settings.

The number of young people who deleted their Facebook app is about four times higher than that of users who are 65 years and older, with about 12 per cent senior users quitting the app in the past 12 months, said the Pew study.

Older users were less frequently adjusting their privacy settings with only a third of them doing so, in comparison with the 64 percent of younger users more willing to do the readjusting.

An estimated 9 percent of Facebook users have downloaded the personal data about them after Facebook updated its privacy settings to make it easier for its users to download the data collected by the social media site, according to the Pew study.

The survey showed that among the users who have downloaded their private data from the Facebook platform, nearly half of them, or 47 per cent, have dropped the app from the cell phone.

It showed that majority 79 per cent chose a higher level of security options in their privacy settings in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

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NEWS DIGEST – The Young Innovators of Nigeria (YIN) on Thursday it was collaborating with Baze University to train 50 children and teenagers in Summer Tech Programmes.

Mr Andrew Abu, the President of the group disclosed this on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Abu said that the training was targeted at bridging the skill gap among Nigerian youths and the Information Technology industry.

According to him, by training the children who will eventually get into the universities to study courses on Information Communication Technology will help solve the challenge.

“Young Innovators of Nigeria has partnered with Baze University for the 2nd edition of the Kids Code Summer Camp tagged: Summer Tech Programmes for Kids and Teens.

“This is train kids and teens for six days in Introduction to Computing, Web Design with Word Press and Robotics.

“This will foster an interest in the minds of the kids and teenagers on innovation and IT related fields.

“This training presents the perfect opportunity for children to launch toward an exciting career. They will learn the basic technical skills by working in team solve problems,” he said.

Abu said other programmes include Django Girl’s Python programming training, Startup Arewa Capacity building programme.

He encouraged interested children to register is on: http://www.yinigeria.com.ng/news.    (NAN)

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NEWS DIGEST – WhatsApp has announced the launch of a new feature globally that will highlight when a message has been forwarded and not composed by the sender.

The messaging application made the move public on Tuesday through its official blog following calls from various parts of the world, including India, to tackle the spread of fake news.

In the statement, the platform, owned by Facebook, said, “Starting today, WhatsApp will indicate which messages you receive, have been forwarded to you.

“This extra context will help make one-on-one and group chats easier to follow,” WhatsApp said in a blog.

“It also helps you determine if your friend or relative wrote the message they sent or if it originally came from someone else.

“To see this new forwarded label, you need to have the latest supported version of WhatsApp on your phone,” WhatsApp added.

Recently, while replying a notice by the Indian government to take immediate measures to prevent misuse of its platform, WhatsApp had said that it was testing a new label that highlights when a message has been forwarded.

“This could serve as an important signal for recipients to think twice before forwarding messages.

“Because it lets a user know if content they received was written by the person they know or a potential rumour from someone else,” it had said.

In its blog, the instant messaging application added, “WhatsApp cares deeply about your safety.

“We encourage you to think before sharing messages that were forwarded. As a reminder, you can report spam or block a contact in one tap and can always reach out to WhatsApp directly for help.”

The company had last month also announced “unrestricted monetary awards” for research on spread of misinformation on its platform to address the problem.

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NEWS DIGEST -Internet users in the country increased to 101. 2 million in April from 100.6 million recorded in March, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said.

The NCC made this disclosure in its Monthly Internet Subscribers Data for April 2018 on its website on Monday in Abuja.

The data showed an increase of 613, 275 subscribers in the country.

NCC said Airtel and MTN gained more internet subscribers during the month in review, Glo and 9mobile were the big losers.

The breakdown revealed that Airtel gained 366,254 new internet users increasing its subscription in April to 25, 842,573 million from 25,476,319 in March

It said MTN gained 718,803 internet users in April amounting to 38, 147. 450 as against 37, 428, 647 recorded in March.

It said 9mobile lost 150,285 internet users in April decreasing its subscription to 10,847,221 as against 10,997,506 recorded in March.

The data also showed in April that Globacom lost 321,497 internet users decreasing its subscription to 26,372,259 from the 26,693,756 recorded in March.

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