by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG – AFRICA remains one of the regions most targeted by cyber crime as organisations globally continue to become more digitised.
cyber crime
Kaspersky shared some insights and statistics related to the regional threat landscape in the third quarter of 2023.
Web threats are internet-based threats that expose people and computer systems to harm online. There was a 24 percent increase in the number of corporate users affected by web threats from the second quarter (Q2) to the third quarter (Q3) in South Africa.
However, comparing Q3 2022 to Q3 2023, there was an 8 percent decline in the number of corporate users affected by web threats.
In South Africa, phishing attacks detected for corporate users in Q3 2023 surged by 134 percent compared to Q2 2023 and by 16 percent compared to Q3 2022.
In the third quarter of 2023, according to Kaspersky, attacks were detected on 32 percent of industrial control systems (ICS) computers in Africa.
Attacks were detected on 22 percent of machines. Globally, malicious objects were detected on 25 percent of ICS machines.
The number of attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices has been increasing exponentially over the last few years globally.
In Q3 2023, South Africa accounted for 28 percent of attacks on IoT devices that were detected by Kaspersky in the African region. Kenya accounts for 12 percent and Nigeria for 6 percent.
David Emm, Principal Cybersecurity Researcher at Kaspersky, said in forecasting the development of the cyber threat landscape for 2024, they anticipate a dynamic evolution of cyber threats marked by an upsurge in state-sponsored cyber-attacks.
He said ‘hacktivism’ will become one of the norms of cyber-warfare.
“The prevalence of accessible generative AI is set to fuel an expansion of spear-phishing tactics, while the creative exploitation of vulnerabilities in mobile and IoT devices will be on the rise,” Emm said.
Businesses have been advised to be proactive and counter these cyber threats with advanced technologies such as threat feeds, security information and event management systems, endpoint detection and response solutions and tools with digital forensics and incident response features.
– CAJ News
