Passed

Beyond the Click:Day-1

This was Day 1 of a two-day Smarthub Academy cybersecurity webinar titled "Beyond the Click," held on August 1, 2026, focused on how cyber criminals steal passwords, money, and trust. Justina Augustus moderated the session (with coaching from Edison Sime), opening with announcements about current cohorts, the scholarship scheme, and a new course starting October 12th. The main content was delivered by Emmanuel Uwa, a security engineer at Matup Academy, who walked participants through the landscape of modern cyber threats. He explained that cyber crime today operates like an organized business rather than the work of lone hackers, then covered the major attack methods: phishing (fake messages impersonating trusted entities), malware, vishing (phone-based scams), fake copycat websites, data breaches (using the 2013 Yahoo breach of 3 billion accounts as a case study), and social engineering — which he emphasized as the most dangerous tactic because it manipulates human emotions rather than attacking systems directly. He illustrated these with real examples, including the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, a pizza-themed phishing test his team ran on a client company, and his own near-miss with a fake scholarship scam on Instagram. The session closed with practical defenses: avoiding predictable and reused passwords, being wary of open public Wi-Fi, spotting phishing red flags like false urgency and requests for sensitive details (PINs, BVN, NIN), carefully checking URLs for subtle misspellings, understanding that the HTTPS padlock doesn't guarantee legitimacy, and adopting password managers and multi-factor authentication as the primary lines of defense. Day 2 will feature a live simulated phishing attack in a safe lab environment, and attendees were encouraged to enable MFA, disable auto-connect to open Wi-Fi, join the community group chat, and invite friends to the next session.

Saturday, August 1, 2026 at 7:00 PM

Speakers

Emmanuel Uwa

cyber

hacking

smarthub

Related Webinars

Passed

Beyond the Click:Day-2

This was Day 2 of Smarthub Academy's "Beyond the Click" cybersecurity webinar, held August 2, 2026. Where Day 1 covered the theory of how cyber criminals operate, Day 2 moved into live demonstration — showing attendees exactly how a phishing attack is carried out from start to finish. Justina Augustus opened with the agenda and ground rules, and Emmanuel Uwa recapped the previous session before diving into the main content. He began by defining digital identity — a person's full online presence across email, social media, phone numbers, and photos — and stressed that an email account is the "master key" that can be used to reset passwords and compromise every linked account, potentially leading to financial theft. The centerpiece was a live phishing simulation using a tool called GoFish against a mock target ("Smart Global"). Emmanuel built a fake login page, generated a convincing HTML verification email disguised as an IT service desk request, launched the campaign using a temporary email identity, and captured the submitted credentials in real time. He showed how attackers immediately redirect victims to the legitimate site so the compromise goes unnoticed, and how they later analyze captured data like timestamps, operating system, and browser. He then covered the broader threat landscape: romance scams and market fraud built on stolen identities, the dangers of oversharing daily activities online, and Multi-Factor Authentication as an essential defense layer. Importantly, he explained MFA's limits — tools like Evilginx use man-in-the-middle techniques to steal active session tokens rather than passwords, bypassing MFA entirely. On ethics, Emmanuel declined a request to demonstrate Evilginx live, explaining that advanced exploitation tools are reserved for trained students and that the academy prioritizes ethical, professional responsibility over teaching offensive techniques. The session closed with core best practices — strong unique passwords, MFA, careful URL and link verification, keeping software updated, and above all never clicking a link you're not fully sure about.