cybersecurity - Afrikan Heroes

How Hackers Are Selling Data Of Over 500 million LinkedIn Users Using Bitcoin

April 12, 2021

Social network giant LinkedIn is the next victim of a major personal data breach, after Facebook. According to information released by Cybernews, more than 500 million LinkedIn users are the latest victims of this massive leak. The data is being sold by hackers for $7,000 worth of bitcoin, says the same source, which updated the report on Friday to clarify it found a new list of databases created by another user on the same hacker forum.

“The new author claims to be in possession of both the original 500-million database, as well as six additional archives that allegedly include 327 million scraped LinkedIn profiles,” the report noted.

“If true, this would put the overall number of scraped profiles at 827 million, exceeding LinkedIn’s actual user base of 740+ million by more than 10%. This means that some, if not most, of the new data sold by the threat actor might be either duplicate or outdated,” it added.

Here Is What You Need To Know

According to the source, personal information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, job details, full names, gender, account IDs, and connections to users’ other social media sites, was included in the leaked data, in addition to publicly viewable member profiles.

LinkedIn, the professional online social network created in 2002 and now owned by tech giant Microsoft, however denied that it was a hack. Instead, the company said the purported hacking activity related to an “aggregation of data from a number of websites and companies”.

In fact, according to the social network, it is “profile data made publicly visible which has been extracted”.

“Data was not therefore stolen from users’ private accounts,” LinkedIn said. “No LinkedIn private member account data was included in what we were able to review.”

Auctioned For Bitcoin

The hackers responsible for this major leak, which represents a blow to the social network, also auctioned the database, starting from $1000 for no less than 500 million profiles.

This database, which has been auctioned, may bring in a four-figure amount, depending on the expectations of hackers who want a settlement in bitcoin. The database consists of a cross-referencing of names, email addresses, telephone numbers, professional backgrounds and other information.

What Makes This So Concerning?

With the alleged hacking activity, LinkedIn users are now potentially at risk of targeted phishing attacks, spamming of 500 million emails and phone numbers, and brute-forcing of profile and email passwords. Harassment and the development of false identities using users’ personal details are examples of other events that may follow.

Professional hackers can also mix the stolen information with other leaks to create a perfect false profile of their targeted victim.

Nevertheless, “the leaked files appear to only contain LinkedIn profile information — we did not find any deeply sensitive data like credit card details or legal documents in the sample posted by the threat actor,” CyberNews said in a statement.

“With that said, even an email address can be enough for a competent cybercriminal to cause real damage,” it added.

What Actionable Steps May Be Taken To Reduce The Chances Of Being A Victim?

According to Tunisia’s National Computer Security Agency (ANSI) in a publication on its official page in response to the recent Facebook data breach:

“It is important to remember that the leak does not concern passwords or messaging. However, the leaked data can be used for phishing (phishing) or smishing (SMS spamming) attacks without forgetting the fact that this information can be sold and exploited for marketing companies.”

The agency also went ahead to advise on actionable steps to take in case of data breach.

“Today, it is impossible to delete the data that was leaked during this attack, but we can mitigate its impact and take preventive measures to improve the protection of personal data communicated to social networks,” it said.

Therefore, ANSI recommends:

“Strengthening account security by opting for strong passwords consisting of 8 to 12 characters including numbers, letters and symbols.

In addition, you should never let a third party or an application create your access settings.

Enable strong or two-factor authentication to deny access to the account even if the access settings have been compromised.
Read also:Egypt’s Paymob Raises $18.5m Series A, Highest Ever For A Fintech Startup

Configure the information communicated to social networks and limit yourself to basic information.

Optimize the protection of mobile devices and computers by installing an antivirus and keeping it up to date.”

Additionally, affected users should:

Not click on any links that seem to be dubious.

Not respond to suspicious emails or messages

Not answer a call from an unknown phone number or return the call.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer

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Kaspersky Warns of Cyberattack Dangers in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa

March 25, 2021

Denis Parinov, a cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky.

Global cybersecurity firm Kaskersky has warned that there is looming cybersecurity danger as a quarter of users in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are attacked by malware hiding within their devices. According to Kaspersky, in 2020, 25% of Kaspersky private users in South Africa, 40% in Kenya and 38% in Nigeria were attacked by such threats.

Kaspersky notes that there is a common misconception that the most dangerous threats to encounter on modern users’ digital journeys are likely to appear during Internet surfing. The reality however, based on the most recent analysis of cyberattacks in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria within 2020 by Kaspersky experts demonstrates that users are in fact more likely to face malware related attacks hidden within their devices.

Such threats are classified as ‘local’, which means they are detected either on user’s devices or on portable data storage devices, such as flash drives. In 2020, 25% of Kaspersky private users in South Africa, 40% in Kenya and 38% in Nigeria were attacked by such threats. To provide a comparison, web attacks only affected 9% of users in South Africa, 11% in Kenya and 8% in Nigeria.

When looking at corporate users in these regions, the numbers are similar: 23% of corporate users in South Africa, 29% in Kenya and 35% in Nigeria encountered such local threats within 2020. Unfortunately, there has been an increase in the sophistication of such threats – which may be hiding on the user’s device within a seemingly legitimate file for a while, to fly under the radar, and only strike later.

“The cyber threat landscape across Africa is constantly evolving,” says Denis Parinov, a cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky. “A few years ago, there were much more drive-by attacks – cases when different malicious software is downloaded and being run while the user simply browses the Internet. Nowadays, most of the web-threats “stays in browser”: they specialise in content replacement, browser locking or clickjacking, online-skimming, cookie stuffing, etc.

Now the situation when a user could download a malicious file directly is not too often. It’s more common for a malware to be disguised as something else to hide from the security solutions, remaining an unseen threat to users. The good news however is that modern security solutions are too advanced for such malware to fly under radars – it is more likely to be blocked either during the initial scan of the file by a security solution that happens by default, or within the very moment such programs attempt to launch.”

To protect against cyber threats including malware, Kaspersky recommends keeping to the following guidelines:

Do not follow dubious links from letters, messages in instant messengers or SMS

Regularly install updates for the operating system and applications

Install applications only from official stores

Use complex and different passwords for accounts

Regularly copy important data from your device to the cloud, to a USB flash drive or hard drive

Do not give applications access to those functions that they do not need and always install a reliable security solution such as Kaspersky Internet Security

In addition, companies are encouraged to provide training to improve cyber literacy among their employees. For example, the automated platform Kaspersky ASAP helps to develop safe behaviour skills and form sustainable cybersecurity habits. The solution allows the company to assess the current knowledge of an employee in the field of cybersecurity, and in accordance with this, determine the set of skills that the employee needs, depending on job duties and risk profile, and build a timetable for the program.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

How African states can improve their cybersecurity

March 23, 2021

Landry Signé and Kevin Signé

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization around the world, but as life has shifted increasingly online, cybercriminals have exploited the opportunity to attack vital digital infrastructure. States across Africa, where digital capacity continues to lag behind the rest of the world, have emerged as a favorite target of cybercriminals, with costly consequences. In early October 2020, Uganda’s telecoms and banking sectors were plunged into crisis due to a major hack that compromised the country’s mobile money network, usage of which has significantly increased during the pandemic. At least $3.2 million is estimated to have been stolen in that incident, in which hackers used around 2,000 mobile SIM cards to gain access to the mobile money payment system. In June, the second-largest hospital operator in South Africa was hit by a cyber-attack in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, paralyzing the 6,500-bed private healthcare provider, forcing them to switch manual back-up systems.

In light of increased attacks, institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria and national cyber-response organizations in Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Morocco, and Kenya have sounded the alarm to businesses and citizens, urging them to improve security measures. But states across Africa still lack a dedicated public cybersecurity strategy. As a result, cybersecurity initiatives related to COVID-19 have been mostly led by the private sector, especially professional and sectoral federations. These are rarely enough, as it’s a long, hard grind for most companies just to cope with the business impact of the pandemic on their day-to-day activities.

Addressing these vulnerabilities in the context of heightened cyberattacks requires a coordinated and dedicated commitment to cybersecurity at a time when governments and organizations are already be strained by the health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. African states and regional bodies have taken initial steps toward implementing a continent-wide strategy to improving cyber-resiliency, but the vulnerabilities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic requires these efforts to be accelerated by building the institutional and coordinating mechanisms to better mitigate cybersecurity threats.

Policy tools for African governments

In order to strengthen cybersecurity, African governments can take a number of steps to improve their capacity to prevent and respond to cybersecurity vulnerabilities. First, it is essential that policymakers define a medium and long-term cybersecurity policy and strategy to integrate cybersecurity into government initiatives and to specify the resources needed to achieve them. This requires setting up national authorities or agencies with sufficient financial resources to implement the strategy and strengthen the country’s cyber-resilience. Additionally, governments must promote a responsible societal cybersecurity culture in order to strengthen the confidence of citizens and organizations in the cyber economy, digital services, and the broader internet. States must set up awareness-raising and training programs in cybersecurity for the public, private, academic, and civil society sectors in order to equip them with the skills and knowledge necessary to respond to cybersecurity risks. Governments must also establish the legal frameworks that are key to regulate the use of cyberspace and to sanction cybercrimes.

Fortunately, governments in the region have made some promising steps on these issues. The African Union, as part of its “Agenda 2063” for transforming Africa, has identified cybersecurity as a key priority to ensure that emerging technologies are used for the benefit of African individuals, institutions, and nation-states and to guarantee data protection and safety online. This project is guided by the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention), which was drafted in 2011 but only adopted in June 2014. The convention’s purpose is to establish a “credible framework for cybersecurity in Africa through organization of electronic transactions, protection of personal data, promotion of cyber security, e-governance and combating cybercrime.” But as of June 2020, the convention has only been ratified by 8 out of 55 AU members (Angola, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda and Senegal), while 14 countries have signed but not ratified it. The AU Cybersecurity Expert Group, formed in 2018, must provide leadership and momentum for the convention’s ratification and deployment. The need for progress on this issue is urgent: The International Telecommunication Union’s Global Cybersecurity Index assess in its 2018 report that African countries are the world’s least committed to cybersecurity.

To improve resiliency, African states must urgently define response plans to be deployed in the event of a major attack on their critical infrastructure. These plans should describe what immediate nation-wide actions would be taken, as well as digital fall-back alternatives, to ensure that government and organizations would still be able to operate even with a sudden loss of digital tools and networks. National and regional stake holders should be involved in the response plan, and the nation’s cybersecurity maturity and capability levels should be taken into account, in order to adapt the response to the local context and to available financial, human, and technology resources. This context-dependent response is particularly important, as Africa is home to many low-income countries and lacks cybersecurity specialists with the required skills to help carry out timely and adequate responses to cyber-attacks. Given that cybercrime has no borders, international and cross-stakeholder collaboration and coordination, as well as cooperation between public and private sector leaders, will be of great importance here.

National cyber-response plans can be strengthened through the establishment of well-resourced and fully functional regional and national Cyber Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) throughout Africa. As of early 2019 only thirteen African countries had stood up such organizations. Regular drills should be performed to assess plans and improve them, for example by participating in the national or regional cyber-drills carried out by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Cybersecurity capacity building (CCB) provides the basis for countries to both improve their digital economies and boost their resilience against cyber threats. Many global CCB initiatives are already underway in African institutions and states. These include the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre (GCSCC) with its Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model (CMM) as part of the Commonwealth Cyber Program, the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), and the International Telecommunication Union with the GCI (Global Cybersecurity Index), just to name a few.These initiatives promote international cooperation, which is key to global and national cybersecurity. They also provide a benchmark and reference for governments building their national cybersecurity policies and strategies. There are several frameworks available for capacity building initiatives, with the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model (CMM) from the GCSCC being the most comprehensive one. This model suggests that the five following dimensions are crucial to building a country’s cybersecurity capacity: policy and strategy, culture and society, education and training, legal and cooperation, standards and technologies. Capacity building is a long-term objective that needs to be well planned, adequately resourced, and regularly monitored in order to be achieved with efficiency. Greater state capacity enables better policy and cybersecurity implementation.

Good progress has been made to improve African countries cybersecurity posture. Mauritius is often cited as a reference on the continent in terms of cyber capacity, because of its legal and technical infrastructure, its national cybersecurity agency (CERT-MU), its national training and awareness initiatives, and the involvement of public and private actors in these efforts. Mauritius ranks first among African countries and 14th globally, in the most recent ITU Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) report from 2018. It has set up a National Disaster Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Committee that includes both public and private sectors and facilitates the monitoring, control, and transmission of decisions during cyber crisis situations. Mauritius is one of the eight African countries to have ratified the Malabo, with which their Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act is aligned, along with the Budapest convention on cybercrime. Mauritius has built a centralized portal to report cyber incidents and a security operations center to detect and monitor malicious traffic in real-time to enhance the country’s cyber threat preparedness.

African states, institutions, and civil society must not only demonstrate their commitment to cybersecurity, but also work in close collaboration and partnership toward the shared objective of protecting citizens, businesses, and organizations in the digital era. This will be imperative to prevent more damaging cyber-attacks, which on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic could have devastating impacts.

Landry Signé is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a distinguished fellow at Stanford Universit while Kevin Signé is an information security senior fellow at the Global Network for Africa’s Prosperity.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Economic Uncertainty Set to Shape 2021 Cybercrime Agenda in Africa —- Kaspersky

January 12, 2021

Leading global cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky has warned that growing economic turbulence along with the impact of COVID-19 will contribute to an increase in cybercrime across South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria in 2021. Speaking on this development, the Enterprise Cyber Security Advisor for Kaspersky in Africa, Lehan van den Heever said that even though every country globally has had to deal with the pandemic in its own way, developing economies across Africa have been especially hard hit by national lockdowns and limited business activity. “And thanks to the increased connectedness of people, the rise in unemployment will not only see a spike in traditional crime, but this will also extend to the digital environment – something we are already seeing.” While the increase in these crimes will vary by country, African nations must prepare themselves for the inevitability of increases in malware that already topped 28 million by August last year, according to Kaspersky research.

Growth in APTs

Adding further pressure to this melting pot of cyberattacks is an expected rise, along with changes in strategy, in Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Adds van den Heever; “Our researchers anticipate that in 2021, across the globe though where Africa is not immune, there will be a change in threat actors’ approach to the execution of APT attacks and as such, organisations must pay special attention to generic malware as it will likely be used to deploy more sophisticated threats.”

Compounding this is the concern around hackers-for-hire and cyber mercenary groups targeting SMEs and financial institutions. “Businesses are under pressure to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive market as they struggle to survive these trying times, amplified further by the effects of COVID-19. The current landscape may likely lead to bankruptcy and an increase in legal disputes in court. This makes an ideal breeding ground for these malicious groups to operate in. And although such activity has not been rife in Africa yet, the region is not immune to this cyber threat.”

Cyber-mercenaries are hired to search for sensitive, private information that can be used in disputes to win court rulings or to steal business trade secrets and provide their ‘employers’ with competitive intelligence to get ahead in the market.

Remote work and data breaches

Additionally, van den Heever believes that the normalisation of remote working will further put existing organisational IT systems under pressure as companies now must contend with an influx in connections into the corporate back-end. “More companies are exposing their systems online while their focus turns to always-on availability. However, few of them have considered how to adapt their cybersecurity controls to this new environment. This results in some databases and systems inevitably being left open to intruders,” he says.

To this end, van den Heever expects data breaches across Africa to increase in the coming months with many companies racing to tighten their security. “This year is going to be a watershed for cybersecurity as organisations start realising the importance of having an integrated and threat intelligent approach to safeguard their systems and data against increasingly sophisticated threat agents,” he concludes.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Work From Home Increased Internet Fraud Cases — Communications Authority of Kenya

January 6, 2021

The Communications Authority of Kenya is hinting that the work from home policy adopted by most companies in Kenya in the heat of the coronavirus pandemic might have brought about increase in the number of internet scam. According to the quarterly sector statistics report covering July-September 2020 released by authority, a sharp increase in cyber threats during the period was experienced, with 35.1 million incidents detected, representing a 152.9 percent jump.

‘‘This increase in cyber threat attacks detected was attributed to the move to working remotely and increased uptake of e-commerce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,’’ notes the report in part.

Online Bullies Had A Field Day

According to the authority, of the 354 requests received by the National Computer Incident Response Team/Coordination Centre (National KE-CIRT/CC) from investigative agencies, 36.2 percent being attributed to online abuse, 27.4 percent linked to online fraud while 1.7 percent was related to child online abuse.

‘‘Cyberbullying and Internet trolling cases were also on the rise, with these being used for malicious intent across Kenyan domains and social media platforms,’’ reads the report.

The Authority said, in response to the incidences, it issued 21,785 advisories to various stakeholders.

“The period witnessed a decrease in impersonation cases, which is attributed to increased awareness campaigns to the public across the print media, television, and social media platforms, geared towards protecting digital footprints, as well as the operationalization of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, which is a deterrent measure,’’ it noted in the report.

Work from Home Kenya

$6.7 Billion In Mobile Money Transfers In Just Three Months

According to the authority, the total value of KSh. 735 billion ($6.7 Billion) were transacted in the three months to September 2020.

The value of customer-to-business transfers during the period was an increase of 64.8 percent compared to the preceding quarter.

‘‘As was the case last quarter, the values transacted on mobile money platforms continued to increase with the adoption of cashless payments aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19,’’ notes the report.

In the same period, there was a 41.7 percent increase in the payments for Government services with KSh. 12.3 billion transacted up from KSh. 8.7 billion in the previous quarter.

The total value of deposits also went up by 40.1 percent to stand at KSh.888 billion up from KSh. 634 billion registered in the April-June period.

The period also saw 713.9 million person-to-person transfers valued at KSh.896 billion.

The number of mobile money agents and mobile money subscription agents also went up by 9.8 and 4.2 percent to stand at 245,124 and 31.8 million subscriptions respectively.

Mobile And Internet Subscriptions At An All-time High

The increased demand for ICT services during the COVID period also saw the number of active mobile subscriptions increase to 59.8 million up from 57 million, pushing the mobile (SIM) penetration to 125.8 percent.

Total data/Internet subscriptions increased by 4.8 percent to stand at 43.4 million with mobile data subscriptions accounting for 98.5 percent of the total subscriptions. The positive growth of data/Internet is attributed to increased dependence on digital platforms for work, learning, healthcare, shopping, and entertainment.

During the same period, the total used international bandwidth went up by 14.2 percent to stand at 3,697.62 Gbps up from 3,238.21 Gbps in the previous quarter.

The ICT sector is expected to continue evolving rapidly with tech innovation, digital transformation, and enhanced connectivity in the country.

‘‘As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, the importance of a robust and inclusive digital economy, together with reliable broadband services is imperative,’’ notes the report.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Enhancing Cybersecurity

January 4, 2021

The Cold War period fostered all sorts of technological advancements, whereas in contemporary times the more technologically advanced the world we have the more cybersecurity is at risk. Combining the quality of artificial intelligence (AI) with cybersecurity, security experts have extra assets to guard helpless systems and information against cyber assailants. After applying this innovation, it brought moment bits of knowledge, coming about in diminished reaction times.

Artificial Intelligence And Bitcoins.

We can barely avoid the role of artificial intelligence which is more beneficial in bitcoins trading. Bitcoin traders in the cryptocurrency market use the exchange framework which is automatic in nature in order to earn confined wages. Valuable metals such as silver and gold are compared with Bitcoins in cryptocurrency markets, playing a central role in considering the fact that fiat currencies are not that reliable as are related to central banks and are sometimes unstable Governments.

Bitcoins traders provide an alternative to precious metals in currency marketing in times of crisis interstate or intrastate even Investors won’t hesitate in and flee to bitcoin trading. Cybersecurity with artificial intelligence further enhanced Bitcoin’s trading market as investing in bitcoin is an equally profitable strategy in a risk adjustment context.

With the convenience of artificial intelligence and assistance provided by cybersecurity, the main reason in this regard is bitcoins trader are now using artificial intelligence has been rewarded monetarily as bitcoin traders are making millions in bitcoins trading and this also uncovered the leading highlights and reasons why more cryptocurrency traders ought to begin in exchanging with bitcoins.

Why Bitcoins trading is profitable

Bitcoins trading is one of the fastest because of the only one and foremost crucial reason is the fastest cryptocurrency market. And so assistance provided by artificial intelligence is just that bitcoins trading takes place more than ten exchanges inside a period of just two minutes. Is greatly quick and one of the reasons why bitcoin traders are so productive in nature. And so this transaction is safeguarded with cybersecurity.

The framework used by the Bitcoin trader is exceptionally straightforward in this regard, and each client can effortlessly get it how it works whereas they exchange. All the bitcoin traders who utilize Bitcoins will be secured at all times. The exchanging encounter with a Bitcoin trader is great in this respect. It is also an encounter that each financial specialist wishes to have, and it could be a steady encounter. The clients are cheerful that they can exchange and gain a benefit with the framework every day.

Contemporary times and the future of Artificial Intelligence.

While analyzing the global scenario is not wrong today, cybersecurity in contemporary times and the future of artificial intelligence provides refuge to bitcoin traders.

Artificial intelligence advances the more cybersecurity enhance, in providing refuge to bitcoin traders who use the robotized framework in fetching and buying crypto at an extremely lower cost than the customary advertised esteem.

In this attempt bitcoins, traders provide a more marvelous way to boost one’s business and become a millionaire. For instance, if an investor with the help of bitcoins traders invests $15 would sell bitcoins $1500 earns the profits $1490. With the help of artificial intelligence and more enhancements in cybersecurity bitcoins, traders are to make bitcoins trading currency, not wrong to say bitcoins trading is or just near to become a currency.

The high liquidity related to bitcoins provided by the trader makes it an incredible speculation vessel on the off chance that an investor finds for its short term investment profits whereas advanced monetary forms may moreover be a long term venture due to high demand of the market. Bitcoin traders undoubtedly provide insane returns to investors in this digital currency, bitcoins.

The complicated cyberattack and sophisticated nature of it is a major challenge to cybersecurity in contemporary times which takes place with minimal intervention of humans which with the help of artificial intelligence will soaring the skies.

Bitcoin traders in rising bitcoins have started to talk more about their future. In spite of bitcoin’s later issues, its victory since 2009 inspires the creation of elective cryptocurrencies.

There is a small question that only comes to mind of an individual that bitcoin trader and bitcoin trading victory or failures in dealing with challenges it goes through may decide the fortunes of others within the long times ahead.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Africa is a Goldmine of Cybersecurity Opportunities, Experts

November 28, 2020

Cyber experts have highlighted the huge business opportunities that exist in Africa especially in the field of cybersecurity even as the Internet of Things adoption grows exponentially in the continent. They are of the belief that Africa presents a wealth of opportunities for startups and innovators looking to address cybersecurity risk across the increasingly digitised continent. This submission was made by Anna Collard, SVP of Content Strategy & Evangelist for KnowBe4 Africa. Collard goes on to say that cybersecurity presents an incredible market opportunity in Africa, with the number of Internet users soaring and demand for IT security skills growing rapidly.

Anna Collard, SVP of Content Strategy & Evangelist for KnowBe4 Africa

“Security skills and services are in high demand everywhere. The number of African Internet users will double to one billion by 2022, and global cybersecurity spend will top $170.4 billion in 2022. At the same time, cybercrime is estimated to cost the global economy a total of $6 trillion by next year, and cybercriminals’ interest in Africa is growing, so it’s a ticking time bomb.”

Highlighting that one of the biggest challenges facing organisations around the world was a lack of skills to manage cybersecurity. “Worldwide, there are currently around four million vacancies in the cybersecurity field, and this is expected to rise to nearly 10 million in the coming years. In Africa, we only have approximately 10,000 certified cybersecurity professionals.”

In this environment, there are huge opportunities for individuals to upskill themselves as cybersecurity specialists, and for entrepreneurs and innovators to develop solutions to the growing cybersecurity challenge.

“In Africa, there are opportunities for startups offering managed cybersecurity services, niche security and forensics services, and for developers and innovators who build security into their solutions from the ground up.”

Collard says the demand for skills was so high that banks and financial services organisations were looking to launch their own cybersecurity academies; governments were working with the private sector to stimulate cybersecurity innovation. “More needs to be done to bring security skills into the school curriculum early; and to position cybersecurity as a prospective career choice, particularly for young women, who are underrepresented in the industry.”

Collard says recent KnowBe4 research in Africa’s education institutions found that only 3.7% offer cybersecurity awareness or training.

“The opportunities in this field extend far beyond becoming a certified cybersecurity specialist,” she points out. “We also need to see a security culture instilled in all organisations and cybersecurity taught from an early age since cybersecurity is no longer a technical skill – it is becoming a life skill.” Adding that “We need solutions to this problem – people will increasingly depend on secure digital platforms for everything they do, so they need to be taught how to do so safely.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Networks Unlimited Wins 2 Channel Awards at Fortinet Africa Virtual Security Day

November 8, 2020

Networks Unlimited Africa, a leading value-added distributor operating within sub-Saharan Africa, received two awards, namely the Technical Support Distributor of the Year: Southern Africa award and the DLB Growth Distributor of the Year: East Africa award at the recent Fortinet Africa Virtual Security Day.

This was the first time that the event took place via a virtual platform, due to the current restrictions around the global COVID-19 pandemic. The online nature of the awards ceremony also ensured that this broadened its reach to other parts of Africa, and not only within South Africa.

Stefan van de Giessen, General Manager: Cybersecurity at Networks Unlimited Africa, comments, “We have proudly maintained our business partnership with Fortinet, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, for over eight years now, while we have been trading in East Africa, operating out of Nairobi, Kenya, since 2016. We receive these awards as an acknowledgement of the strength of our relationship.

“The Southern Africa award is based on our technical ability to resolve all Fortinet customer-related support enquiries and requests within stringent parameters across the African region, while the Distributor-Led Business (DLB) East Africa award speaks towards our SME partners and shows great growth in our channel here, enabling and developing our smaller partners to sell Fortinet solutions. This is an important point for us, as security has no boundaries and our smaller partners are generally less equipped to deal with the ever-changing security landscape. Our sales and technical enablement have assisted them in maturing their offerings.”

Van de Giessen notes that the accolades represent more than simply awards for Networks Unlimited Africa. “Awards like these mean that our partners and their customers will receive an excellent level of support from our certified security engineering team,” he concludes.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Cybersecurity is a puzzle – Make sure you have all the pieces

October 29, 2020

Brian Pinnock, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast

By Brian Pinnock

Spare a thought for the modern CISO. The global cybercrime industry has been in overdrive since the start of the year, as threat actors capitalise on the disruption brought by the coronavirus pandemic. The Mimecast Threat Centre found a dramatic increase in cyberattacks during the first 100 days of the pandemic.

In sub-Saharan Africa, spam attacks increased by 46%, impersonation attacks by 75% and malware by a massive 385%.

Cybersecurity is a ‘complex puzzle’

To protect against these threats, organisations have to build complex, multi-layered security strategies that safeguard customers, employees and company data.

The sheer volume of threats and the abundance of attack vectors makes effective cybersecurity a complicated puzzle. In many cases, organisations have no clear idea of how to put those puzzle pieces together in an effective way.

Only 62% of South African organisations have or are actively rolling out a cyber resilience strategy, well below the global average of 77%.

What are the pieces of the cybersecurity puzzle? In our experience, the following four elements can add up to a holistic cybersecurity strategy that protects customers, employees and data from exploitation:

Visibility

Without visibility over employees, data and your online brand, building an effective cybersecurity strategy is a bit like building a puzzle in the dark.

Threat intelligence can play a vital role by providing insight into how organisations are targeted, what cyber threats have been blocked and why, which employees are the riskiest and what actions to take to optimise the broader cybersecurity strategy.

However, visibility should extend beyond the perimeter of the organisation. The speed at which cybercriminals can imitate brands online, makes it easy to launch sophisticated attacks using lookalike domains that can easily trick customers, partners and employees.

Tools such as DMARC, are effective and an essential piece of the puzzle, but only for protecting domains already owned by the organisation, against email brand exploitation.

Supplementing DMARC with tools that protect against online brand exploitation can help identify attack patterns at the preparation stage and block compromised assets before they turn into live attacks.

To fully protect a brand, an organisation should consider implementing DMARC along with brand exploitation tools, managed from one integrated system that provides both visibility and proactive remediation.

Resilience

All organisations regardless of size are at risk of cyberattack. While defences are important, being able to quickly recover from a successful attack is just as vital. Unplanned outages – such as those typical in cloud services such as Microsoft365 – can also disrupt business and lead to losses in productivity, revenue and reputation.

Email is still the most widely used business tool and email continuity solutions provide guaranteed access to email, from anywhere and on any device even when email servers fail.

Cloud archiving can further help keep corporate knowledge available despite disruptions. And specialised sync-and-recover tools can fill data recovery gaps for those instances where data is corrupted or deleted – whether intentionally or by accident.

Culture

Cybersecurity is at its most effective when every employee understands their role in protecting the organisation – and themselves – from attacks.

Organisations should seek to instil a culture of cybersecurity awareness that permeates from the top to the bottom of the organisation. Micro-learning together with engagement is the key. Ongoing training that is short, relatable, memorable and that regularly reinforces key concepts works.

We know this, because during lockdown periods across the world, Mimecast researchers found that users in organisations that had Mimecast awareness training were 5 times less likely to fall prey to social engineering attacks than those that didn’t.

Management teams should be ready to take swift action in the wake of a data breach, to ensure the threat is contained, damage mitigated, and the organisation is not at risk of non-compliance to prevailing regulations.

Compliance

With the Protection of Personal Information Act now in place, South African organisations are under immense pressure to protect customer data or risk heavy penalties. Both data management and data protection are key elements in achieving compliance.

It is difficult for an organisation to achieve data management compliance with unstructured data like email. What’s key is to have a third party, independent and immutable data repository that complies to regulatory standards and mitigates legal risks.

The importance of data security and protection is elevated with significant POPIA financial and criminal penalties. Organisations also need to consider the brand damage that is associated with data breaches.

Email remains the number 1 attack vector for cyber-attacks. It’s widely reported that 91% of all attacks start with an email, with some not even requiring malware.

Call for greater awareness, effort

There is no silver bullet when it comes to security, even when it comes to protecting against a specific attack – like phishing. The entire ecosystem needs to take security seriously or everyone remains at risk. Protecting your brand and customers with solutions like DMARC and tools that prevent brand impersonation online is important.

But if the organisation at the receiving end of a phishing email doesn’t have protections in place, they could fall victim to an attack. Ultimately, the entire business world needs to prioritise security and protect each other.

The first step is to consider managing security solutions and a resilience tool in an integrated system that helps reduce cost and complexity, and ultimately enhances the broader security ecosystem.

Brian Pinnock, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Networks Unlimited Africa keeps Value Offering Promises despite Lockdown Challenges

October 23, 2020

Despite challenges of constraint, Networks Unlimited Africa has managed to maintain its standards during the lockdown in order to keep its unique partner offering intact. So says Anton Jacobsz, CEO at this leading value-added distributor in the sub-Saharan Africa market. He comments, “Networks Unlimited delivers products and solutions that are affordable, better than the competition, and with faster service delivery to our partners and end-users within the converged technology, data centre, networking, and security landscapes

“We are proud to have maintained our standards during the lockdown despite the difficult environment, especially during the initial phase of the early ‘hard’ lockdown. I commend the three general managers of our divisions and their teams – Cybersecurity, Enterprise Systems Management, and Networking and Storage – for playing their parts in keeping our high standards flying during this difficult year.”

Stefan van de Giessen, General Manager: Cybersecurity, explains, “In the cybersecurity space, the general rule of thumb is that if you compromise on quality, you will compromise your network. Networks Unlimited works closely with our partners and end customers to understand their respective security needs. Once this has been established, we will prioritise the biggest threat vectors and create a project plan according to the available budget.

“It should also be noted that the quality of our selected vendors is more than just a datasheet or a rating by Gartner. Along with leading products, we offer experienced certified security engineers to implement the solutions according to best practices. In our industry, you can buy the most expensive solution but cut costs on the implementation, which will result in a very weak security posture, and vice versa, and obviously neither of these situations is to be recommended.

“As regards timely and efficient service delivery, our regional footprint throughout Africa allows us to keep stock in the required areas, and during the lockdown, we were still able to deliver timeously across the continent. But fast service delivery is more than just logistics: when it comes to post-sales support, we have over 10 years of combined experience on the edge, endpoint, datacentre and cloud areas.”

The Cybersecurity division was recently able to cement a new partnership because of the company’s commitment to affordability, quality and service delivery standards during the lockdown, explains Van de Giessen.

He clarifies, “We have onboarded a vendor with one of the big five systems integrators in South Africa. The reasons for this integration with our product included the following: the costing from the vendor in the vulnerability space is market-related; their product has been rated as a leading product, and our teams integrated well from both a sales and technical perspective to deliver on the agreed KPIs.

“In general, it is accurate to say that we have seen new business success with our three marketing pillars, based on the value we are able to deliver with an ever-growing pipeline. Once the relationship has been established and the value of the product is known to all parties, our partners keep their relationship with us based on being a trusted advisor with consistent fast delivery throughout the product sales cycle.”

“The lockdown has placed a tremendous amount of pressure on company CIOs, CEOs, CISOs and IT managers. Marketing to them was therefore key in order to deliver the message around reliability, flexibility and value, during this time when so many more employees are working from home and creating additional threat vectors within their network,” concludes Van de Giessen.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry