Cyber security
Kenya’s businesses are dealing with 1 400 cyber-attacks each week
This year has seen a 29% rise in cyberattacks against businesses across the world. In Africa, this growing threat is driven by an increase in users accessing the internet, creating a larger pool of targets for criminals, which is what we’ve witnessed in Kenya. The country’s connected population nearly reached 22 million users in January – a figure likely to have grown as pandemic lockdowns forced many business and government services online. With digital transformation being embraced across Kenya, how has cybercrime impacted local businesses? Statistics from the Check Point Research Threat Intelligence Report for Kenya highlight how widespread the problem is. Globally, the average number of weekly attacks experienced by organisations was 870. In comparison, Kenya’s busine...
Cyber Insurance: A Growing Demand for All Companies?
Image sourced from Forbes. The advancement of connectivity in light of the digital revolution has radically transformed our lives and brought unprecedented benefits to companies in the way they operate and do business. However, digitalization is a double-edged sword and comes with risks as well, among them cyber exposures. Companies are facing a number of challenges such as the prospect of more disruptive and expensive business interruptions, the increase in the frequency and cost of ransomware incidents, the consequences from larger data breaches and more robust regulation – both at home and overseas – as well as the prospect of litigation if something does go wrong. In 2021, cyber incidents ranked among top business risks in South Africa, Africa and globally in the Allianz Risk Barometer...
CSCS sensitizes financial market stakeholders on cyber-security
Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc, Nigeria’s capital market infrastructure, is ramping up its cyber-security advocacy as it sensitizes financial market participants on rising rate of cybercrime. In a webinar organized by CSCS, financial market stakeholders, including bankers and capital market operators dialogued on innovative measures for preventing cybercrimes, dire need for increased campaign and exigency of collaborative investments to reign in the rising rate of cybercrime. The online event themed “Cyber Security and Information During the Pandemic” was lauded for its timeliness, as COVID-19 pandemic and attendant remote connections may have increased cyber-security risks in many organizations, particularly as the crime rate surges globally, with rising exposure of financi...
U.S. warns Pacific islands about Chinese bid for undersea cable project
The United States has warned Pacific island nations about security threats posed by a Chinese company’s cut-price bid to build an undersea internet cable, two sources told Reuters, part of an international development project in the region. Huawei Marine, which was recently divested from Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and is now majority-owned by another Chinese firm, submitted bids along with French-headquartered Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), part of Finland’s Nokia, and Japan’s NEC, for the $72.6 million project backed by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), the sources with direct knowledge of the project details said. The project is designed to improve communications to the island nations of Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Kiribati. Washington sent a diploma...