American entrepreneur Adrian Shatku is the founder of New York-based UNIFI Communications, one of the largest carriers of international voice traffic and a leading provider of enhanced telecommunication services and solutions in the world. UNIFI provides international voice traffic and telephony solutions with more than 22 points of presence and 250+ bilateral interconnects. The company’s services include voice, data transport, VoIP, mobile and infrastructure solutions. Total active subscribers using UNIFI services have grown to more than 100 million subscribers.
Shatku has been aggressively expanding UNIFI’s business in Africa and recently spent a few minutes with me to chat about a subject he is passionate about – the challenges and opportunities inherent to cyber-security and protections in telecommunication in emerging markets. Excerpts below:
What can be done to safeguard digital intelligence in emerging markets like Africa?
In today’s digital era, it is estimated that internet penetration amounts to roughly 49.7% of the global population, with 91% of the world’s internet users coming from emerging markets such as Africa. Even in areas historically left out of connectivity, such as many African countries, access to the internet and the variety of services that comes with it is budding. For example, it is estimated in a study by Internet World Stats, as of March 2017, that 28.3% of the African continent hosts active internet users.
However, by that same notion, we’ve seen a rise of ‘ransom-ware’ in Africa and an increase in social media scams, and email threats. Business email scams and malware are prevalent, particularly those that showcase unchecked vulnerabilities. All are truly at risk – from the practitioner’s position, operators in Africa are suffering massive losses in profitability and functionality. African governments’ lose in the collectability of taxes, subject to hacking and even misappropriation.
These are in part motivations as to why we recently purchased WIS Telecoms, one of the top 15 carriers in the world, to bridge that gap and increase our geographic footprint in both the EU and Africa by doing so.
It ultimately comes as no surprise that the globalizing industry of telecommunications needs to evolve and defend from within, as it is more and more frequently relied upon for storing and sharing multimedia, communicating via text and email, social media liaison, finance management (money lending), education, healthcare and general information gathering. Our access to the Internet enables us to retrieve the most information possible, at the fastest pace; however, this can occur with the interception of such data often disregarded.
For the hacking community, how is the global advent of en masse technological usage fortuitous?
In this newfound environment, it is up to us to continue to innovate so as to keep hackers and cyber criminals at bay. Enhanced VOIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol, has proven to be a key solution. From secure calls between the farmer and the manufacturer, to the candidate and the party, there has clearly been no greater impetus for cyber-security.
Casting traditional methods aside, VOIP has combined the telephone and internet arenas to facilitate secure connectivity. In basic terms, it allows phone service to be delivered through an individual’s internet connection, rather than via a traditional phone company or an unprotected and insecure ‘hotspot’. Typically, VOIP services are offered at a lower cost than their counterparts due to the utilization of a single network while boasting increased functionality and consistent connection wherever there is internet.
However, with increased connectivity comes a need for greater cyber protection; how do you know who is truly listening on the other line without proper ‘backup’?
It’s true – banking information, electoral databases and health records are all stored via the internet and subject to trespass; this leaves us prone to serious risks with respect to privacy, security, and reputational destruction, those that need to be mitigated in the interest of both profit and proactive service, in emerging markets and worldwide.
In fact, the UK Department for Culture, Media, and Sport estimated that half of businesses in Britain experienced cyber-attacks in 2016, costing from £1,570 to £19,600 per attack. And don’t be fooled – it is not solely larger corporations that are targeted, with an estimated 43% of attacks being directed at small businesses.
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This exposure to cyber-crime is only building in scale, with the consequences becoming more and more serious with every piece of information we make digital. Constant innovations in technology also far exceed the regulatory and consumer protection environment (indeed the case with regard to many African emerging markets), leaving a susceptible individual or corporation targeted.
Conversely, while VOIP providers such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber or Facebook and other Over the Top Providers (OTT) enable us to make calls without a mobile operator, again, this low-cost sharing of information comes with its own risks. Mobile operators are losing Billions in revenue and are constraint to make investments to expand and protect their networks. Government are losing billions also on tax revenue. Moreover, Specifically, there are many security concerns prevalent, such as stealing service from said provider, phishing for confidential information, DoS attacks, spam, call tampering or eavesdropping for the purposes of stealing credentials or other data.
As a result, and in the interest of greater immunity in future, we need to focus on enhancing cyber security as a front line of ‘Defence 2.0’.
While cyber hackers are becoming more skilled and the climate that the public and private sector-defence service providers operate within becomes more deliberately opaque, telecommunication corporations such as UNIFI are transforming their approach. We are intrinsically innovative and responsive, learning to better detect interruptions in pragmatic fashion and subverting or halting them at a quicker pace, including bypass detection, revenue monitoring and transaction security services as but aspects of our offering.
If we continue to combine these innovations with 24/7 self-awareness and regulation, coupled with a ‘finger on the pulse’ of an ever-changing marketplace, we can together curb the effects of cyber-crime in a new era of connectivity. It is in our hands to take that which we have benefited from and create a climate of secure, lasting change.