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Cyberthreat Landscape Insights For The African Region
During the 9th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2024, held in Kuala Lumpur, Kaspersky experts discussed the evolution of the cyberthreat landscape in the region.
The focal point of the discussions was the security of emerging technology trends such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), that are influencing the scale of modern threats. In parallel, threats targeting industrial control systems within critical infrastructure, in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were also discussed. Kaspersky’s Cyber Immunity approach took centre stage as a way to create solutions that are virtually impossible to compromise and that minimise the number of potential vulnerabilities.
In the African region, Kaspersky’s telemetry showed the number of overall cyberthreats in South Africa decreased by 29 percent in 2023 as compared to 2022. At the same time, phishing attacks that use social engineering tactics to scam people into revealing sensitive information rose by 29 percent.
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Over the same period, Kenya saw a decrease in overall threats by 8 percent while an increase was seen in ransomware arracks by 68 percent, backdoors by 47 percent, exploits by 22 percent, and phishing by 19 percent. Nigeria saw an overall decrease in all threats by 10 percent while banking malware attacks designed to collect online banking credentials and other sensitive information from infected machines increased by 8 percent.
According to Kaspersky’s analysis, online threats caused by vulnerabilities on web pages, in emails or webservices, have fluctuated significantly in the region. Turkiye saw the highest number of users affected by online threats (41.8 percent), followed by Kenya (39.2 percent), Qatar (38.8 percent) and South Africa (35 percent). Fewer users were affected in Oman (23.4 percent) and Egypt (27.4 percent) followed by Saudi Arabia (29.9 percent) and Kuwait (30.8 percent).
“As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, cyber threats continue to become diverse and sophisticated. This trend is particularly evident due to the emergence of advanced technologies like AI and the escalating geopolitical and economic turbulence within the Middle East, Turkiye, Africa (META) region. These factors collectively contribute to the surge in cybercrime and the heightened complexity of cyberattacks,” comments Amin Hasbini, Director of META Research Center Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), Kaspersky.