By Khalifa Hemed
Published August 26, 2021
Malware attack across Africa continue to grow as cybercriminals and hackers continue to focus on the increase in remote working resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Kaspersky Lab, a firm that specialises in cybersecurity and digital privacy, says that Africa has experienced a 5% increase in malware in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.
Overall, four countries account for 85 million attacks, with South Africa being the most targeted (32 million attacks), followed by Kenya (28.3 million), Nigeria (16.7 million) and Ethiopia (8 million). All countries but Kenya saw the relative growth of all malware attacks. Ethiopia and Nigeria have seen an increase of 20% and 23%, respectively, and South Africa an increase of 14%, while Kenya’s number of attacks decreased by 13%.
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“Even though the scourge of malware has always been of concern, the past 12-months have highlighted how hackers are refocusing their efforts to compromise consumer and corporate systems and gain access to critical data and information. Given the growth of digital transformation across Africa since last year, the continent has become an attractive target for those looking to exploit a lack of user education and cybersecurity understanding. This has contributed to the large number of personal devices still not having any form of cybersecurity software installed,” says Bethwel Opil, Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa.
Saying ‘malware can get onto a device by clicking on an infected link or advert, opening an attachment in a spam email, or downloading a compromised app’, Opil says ‘proactive malware protection is essential to safeguarding individual users and corporates against these threats’.
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Accordng to Kaspersky, one can prorect oneself from malware attack by:
- Installing anti-virus software on every device that connects to the Internet
- Downloading applications from trusted sites only. Even then, always check the app permissions and, if certain things do not make sense, do not install the programme
- Not clicking on unverified links especially when coming from suspected spam emails, messages, or suspicious-looking websites
- Keeping operation systems and applications always updated with the latest patches, and
- Being wary of using free Wi-Fi at coffee shops, restaurants, and other places as hackers can snoop for unprotected devices.
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