US-based FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) is clamming that Nigerian hackers and cyber criminals masterminding a grand theft of information and money running into billions of dollars, worldwide. According to experts, the Nigerians are able to carry out the heist by sending phishing emails to commercial organizations and industrial enterprises, which they later steal dry.

The FBI estimates that these phishing attacks have cost companies over $3 billion. The number of affected companies exceeds 22,143. Kaspersky Labs, an internet security company said it has found over 500 companies that are under attack in at least 50 countries. Those under attack are mostly industrial enterprises and large transportation and logistics corporations, based in Germany, UAE, Russia and India.

In a blog post, Kaspersky said the cyber-criminals managed to steal technical drawings, floor plans and diagrams showing the structure of electrical and information networks. Researchers said that all indications are that these were business email compromise (BEC) attacks that have come to be associated with Nigerian cyber-criminals. Emails received by victims looked authentic enough to fool people.

‘Nigerian letters’ (a.k.a. 419 scams) have become classics of online fraud. The creators of fascinating stories about heiresses/widows/secretaries/lawyers of deceased millionaires/disgraced dictators/other fat cats didn’t win the Ig Nobel Prize for literature in 2005 for nothing. They may not be very highly qualified, but they certainly have a talent for extortion, and may well have been profiting from the greed and gullibility of their victims for years.

Several years ago, Nigerian phishers appeared on the radar of researchers. They were the same scammers who specialized in so-called Nigerian letters, but at the same time they were mastering new techniques for stealing money – this time, from companies. They are usually the ones behind business email compromise attacks.

There have been a good many publications on phishing attacks by Nigerian fraudsters in the past three years. This is no coincidence: this relatively new type of criminal business is gaining momentum. According to FBI estimates, the damage from Nigerian phisher activity from October 2013 to May 2016 exceeded US$3 billion and the number of affected companies was as high as 22,143. Those companies are scattered across 79 countries of the world.

In 2013-2015, mostly small and medium-size companies were attacked. The phishers gathered the email addresses of potential victims on the Internet.

That country called NIGERIA – it continues to surprise the world. They have “no technical skills”, yet it is doing this. Which one do you believe?

A new report by Premium Times where taxi drivers in Lagos are complaining about how Uber is killing their business provides a good example on how Internet provides growth and abundance, but yet left the players poorer. The drivers have a larger pool of potential customers, but yet, the value is not in the driving but in the aggregation which Uber provides.

Mr. Murphy, 43, explained that the activities of Uber drivers have been a source of sorrow for them as they no longer get patronage like they did in the past.

“If you notice, there are many taxis on ground here and their owners aren’t here. They’ve all gone home out of anger,” he said.

“Many of them have been here for hours without seeing any passenger; they had to go.”

Mr. Murphy, who claimed to have built a house from his taxi transport business, also lamented that the development has taken a toll on his responsibilities among family members and at the home front.

“These days, people I used to give N20,000 in the past would count themselves lucky if I give them N3,000.

“It has become so bad here in this park that in a whole week, it may not get to your turn to pick up passengers,” he said.

“That’s apart from the fact that we pay dues too. They tax us N200 daily and N1,000 weekly, despite the poor patronage.”

Uber as noted in this video is the aggregator, just as Google is to journalism. It operates and makes all the money. The taxi drivers are now delivery systems which get practically marginal value. You can also see this from the angle of Smiling Curves where Uber is at the edge making all the money while the taxi drivers are at the center for nothing. Both the Uber drivers and the traditional Lagos drivers are not going to be happy because Uber, through this abundance of more customers, is destroying the old value enjoyed by the traditional taxi drivers and yet is not efficiently (in money terms) transferring the value to their drivers. So every driver is unhappy. This means that, even in abundance, Internet does not always create value. It depends on where you are in the Smiling Curves. Watch the videos

In this videocast, I discuss what I am calling the Law of Diminishing Abundance of Internet. It is a construct that some companies become poorer even when they are growing in numbers of customers reached.That applies to industrial sectors like publishing and telecoms. The lesson here is that risk in any business model must be examined from the lens of this mirage abundance which Internet has provided in some sectors.