African Countries are Hotbeds for Crypto Investment Like Avesta

What continent do you think has the largest number of countries adopting cryptocurrency and blockchain technology?

Europe?

North America?

South America?

Actually, it’s none of the above.

The correct answer is Africa.

Almost half of the countries with the greatest appetite for crypto investment and adoption lie on the African continent. This includes the potential for bitcoin in its three current forms as a medium of exchange, store of value, and technological platform.

Bitcoin Exchange Paxful Recognizes the Opportunity Cryptocurrency Offers Africa https://t.co/TmW5kjEblm #newsoftheweek #Bitcoin #blockchain #crypto #cryptocurrency #news pic.twitter.com/I6DGi0A5mq

— Remi Vee 🛡️ (@Remi_Vladuceanu) June 10, 2018

While bitcoin is the first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, it’s long-term potential as anything other than a store of value is questionable. Many people are still apprehensive about using bitcoin and the bitcoin blockchain has not been able to scale well, even after the implementation of segregated witness in 2017.

Luckily, platforms like Avesta seek solutions to the age-old problems posed by the bitcoin blockchain. Platforms like Avesta, as well as other revolutionary concepts like SUNEX, are the reason why Africa is the most important continent for crypto investment and adoption. 

Crypto Investment in Countries Outside the Western World Booms

In the cryptocurrency news space and blogosphere, it’s common to hear about the blockchain adoption and crypto investment taking place in Western countries. Most of the talk focuses on countries in North America and Western Europe.

Every now and then, however, a smaller nation makes its way into cryptocurrency news. Venezuela is one such example.

Caught in the midst of political strife and economic destitution, some local Venezuelans turned to mining bitcoin to feed their families in 2017. And on an international level, Venezuela created its own state-backed cryptocurrency to trade for oil with – the “Petro.”

While adoption of the Petro has yet to be seen and crypto has certainly not cured all of Venezuela’s woes, the country has demonstrated to the world what can be done with blockchain technology and cryptographic coins.

Similarly, a large number of African countries are poised to become the biggest adopters of cryptocurrency on the planet. This fact is certainly worthy of cryptocurrency news, yet how many people can tell you what continent has the most countries interested in crypto adoption?

Revolutionary Crypto Investments Occurring in Africa

Two examples that show the interest in crypto investment and blockchain adoption in African nations are SUNEX and Avesta. These two platforms are unlike anything else yet to be seen in the crypto industry.

SUNEX

SUNEX aims to digitize solar energy through the blockchain. Once the project goes live, users will be able to own solar panels in South Africa and earn passive income through the energy they produce.

Given that Africa has a vast amount of untapped solar energy, this concept has the potential to both bring crypto investment into Africa as well as provide a tremendous source of renewable energy. The African economy and ecology are both poised to boom as a result.

Avesta

Avesta intends to solve many of the problems posed by traditional cryptocurrencies.

No longer will people unfamiliar with computers and technology have phobic reactions to the very thought of using a bitcoin address to send or receive transactions, for example.  

The team behind Avesta has a combined thirty years of experience in the cryptocurrency industry. The Avesta platform will spur further crypto investment in Africa and the world.

Crypto Investment and Adoption Have Never Been Better

Someone recently told me they didn’t have faith in the general concept of cryptocurrency because they were concerned about its potential for mass adoption. “No one’s going to use it,” they said.

Similar sentiments have been echoed by skeptics all over the world for years now. But these statements are based more on feelings than they are on facts.

a#Africa’s 🌍#Crypto #BOOM is just getting started https://t.co/8IGsM414Y6 #nigeria 🇳🇬#SouthAfrica 🇿🇦 #blockchaintechnology #ArtificialIntelligence @SpirosMargaris @ahier @akwyz @mclynd @evankirstel @ipfconline1 @barrysilbert @kuriharan @stratorob @Stevewal63 @jblefevre60 pic.twitter.com/HcaRhtA4YJ

— Xavier Gomez (@Xbond49) June 9, 2018

The next time someone hints at the lack of global adoption for cryptocurrency, tell them about the huge wave of crypto investment sweeping over Africa. Tell them about SUNEX and how it will bring people out of poverty and cut the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

And tell them about Avesta – the blockchain that will initiate the next great wave of crypto adoption.

© Brian Nibley 2018

Privacy Practices and Secure Communications to Mitigate Attack Risk

It’s a common misconception that privacy concerns are only for the paranoid or those with something to hide. In reality, having greater privacy is often a prerequisite to having greater security.

If your information is made private, it’s a lot harder to compromise.

Hackers need something to bite on in order to take a chunk of your life or business and tear it to shreds. Don’t give them that initial morsel. Do all you can to step into the shadows.

A few simple methods to help prevent attacks include having better privacy practices and avoiding phishing tactics.

Best Privacy Practices for Companies

The methods described here apply to both individuals and corporations of all sizes. Here are a few things that can be done to make some of the actions of your company opaquer:

·       Use DuckDuckGo as your default search engine. DuckDuckGo does not track its users, meaning there will be no trace of what your employees search for. This will alleviate some concerns over corporate espionage. In addition, DuckDuckGo generally yields better research results than most other search engines.

·       Use Protonmail for all company communications. Protonmail is an encrypted email service based in Switzerland. Free accounts come with up to 500 megabytes of storage. Emails sent to these accounts cannot be seen by outside sources. Encrypted emails also come with the option of setting an expiration date – meaning they will delete themselves without a trace after a set amount of time, from one hour to twenty-eight days.

·       Use Signal 2.0 for all cell phone communications. Signal allows for the same kind of security provided by Protonmail, but for texts and voice calls. Just as with encrypted emails, encrypted texts can be set to self-destruct after a time.

Better privacy practices won’t solve all your problems. But they are a big step in the right direction.

Privacy Practices and Detection

If you can’t prevent an attack, you need to at least know it’s happening. If not, there’s no end to the damage that can be done. Many corporations and nearly all individuals have no detection whatsoever.

Hi business owners and entrepreneurs, are you all ready for GDPR? On 25th of May, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect. The GDPR is the European Union's new data privacy law. It impacts how all businesses, big and small, collect and handle personal data about their customers. Even though we're in Australia and don't have to comply with the new GDPR requirements. However I thought it is a good idea to get everything set up. I think sooner or later this will come to Australia. Also if you're running FB ads, you have to make sure you comply with FB's private data policy. Make sure you have your privacy policy in place on your landing page. At AuBiz, we've updated our Privacy Policy to make sure we provide information around the rights individuals have under the GDPR and to include more details around our processing of personal data including marketing opt-in and cookie policy.

A post shared by AuBiz Consulting (@aubizconsulting) on May 22, 2018 at 2:13pm PEven                       

Take the National Security Agency (NSA), for example. For months, Edward Snowden was opening classified documents and downloading them.

He managed to escape undetected the entire time. An insider threat escaped the awareness of the NSA due to poor detection. How can you prevent this from happening?

StationX Canary Tokens allow you to create files that will act as trip wires for unauthorized access to your data. If someone opens a Canary Token, you will receive an email notification immediately. This lets you know someone has been poking around in your system.

While it’s ideal to not get compromised in the first place, having adequate detection ensures that you can mitigate the damage done by an attacker. After receiving news that you have been hacked, you can shut down all systems, preventing further intrusions.

Phishing and Privacy Practices

Most of the time, however, detection won’t be much of a concern.

Hackers have figured out that the best way to gain access to a system is to go straight to the source via social engineering. Hackers have begun to turn into amateur spies worldwide.

The majority of successful hacking today is not done by means of some sophisticated computer program or network attacking technique.

It’s simply accomplished by using phishing tactics.

Again, education is the single most important aspect that is being constantly overlooked in the IT field.#CyberAware #Cybersecurity #Cyber #WomeninTech #DataBreach #Infosec #Security #Privacy #MobileSecurity #AndroidDev #iOSDev #Hacking #Ransomware #AI #Bots #Malware #DDoS pic.twitter.com/VD7Hk6L4lr

— Digital Forensics (@ForensicsCorp) May 21, 2018

Educating employees about phishing is one of the simplest and cheapest ways for companies to prevent attacks. Many organizations have already begun incorporating such education into their standard training programs.

Phishing emails, phone calls, and websites are the most common techniques used by hackers.

Emails

Never click a link or download an attachment in an email without being 100% certain that it’s from a trusted source.

In fact, it’s best to not even open emails unless you can tell they’re from someone you know. Be sure to check the address the message was sent from. A common tactic is to use a name from your contacts with a single letter changed.

Another way to help avoid this is to use separate email addresses for your inbox. Give one address out for general purposes and another for strictly business.

This way, if an email comes from your general address, you will know to be on high alert for anything suspicious.  

Make it a rule to never click a link or download an attachment in an email, period. This shouldn’t be hard to do.

With cloud storage, you don’t need to send email attachments as often as in the past. And you can always find a link on your own rather than trying to go there directly through the email.

Phone Calls

Phone calls are a more sophisticated form of social engineering. A caller might impersonate someone higher up the corporate ladder and ask for sensitive information.

Again, the easiest way to avoid this is to make it a rule to never share information whenever possible. Verify the source, and then see if there’s some other way to do what’s needed.

Fake Sites

Fake websites are perhaps the most difficult phishing traps to avoid. They can look exactly like the real thing. It’s even possible for an attacker to fake the SSL certification and padlock image in the URL.

 The only way to avoid these attacks is to constantly check the web address word for word. If anything appears to be off, don’t enter any personal information. In addition, most browsers and anti-virus programs have features that will warn you of potentially fake sites.

No Cause for Concern with Good Privacy Practices

Using encrypted communication, having some detection set up, and avoiding phishing will go a long way towards achieving freedom from many of the most common cybersecurity concerns. It will also mitigate the damage that can be done in the event of a successful attack.