Cybersecurity news
Take Steps Now to Protect Your Organisation as Ransomware-as-a-Service Ramps Up DDoS Attack Offerings
Image sourced from Ben Kerckx, Pixabay. The services industry has traditionally included sectors ranging from social assistance and health care to transportation and scientific services. However, it doesn’t end there, because the human talent for innovation can turn almost anything into a service. We also find – rather less top-of-mind for most people – the offer of hitmen-as-a-service, usually associated, at least in Hollywood, with large and well-muscled men in expensive suits and sunglasses. A few years ago, this area of business moved into the cyber arena as well. And so we present: ransomware-as-a-service. Today, one of its latest offerings is a ‘triple threat’ that turns Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks into an even more lethal cyber weapon against organisations. Carole H...
Malware Attacks in Africa Reach 85-Million in 6 Months – Kaspersky
Image sourced from Sectigo. According to research performed by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, malware is rife across Africa with various countries exhibiting strong growth in all malware types in the first half of 2021 when compared to the same period last year. This is a 5% increase in the region, as cybercriminals and hackers continue to focus on African countries considering digital transformation advancements and the increase in remote working resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, 4 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 incre...
SA Data Breach Costs Reached Record Highs During Pandemic – IBM
IBM Security announced the results of a recent study that found that data breaches now cost South African companies $3-million (R46-million) on average – the highest cost in the 6-year history of the report. Worldwide, the average financial damages caused by a data breach increased by nearly 10% year over year to $4.24 million in 2021. Based on in-depth analysis of real-world data breaches experienced by organisations in South Africa, the study suggests that security incidents became more costly and harder to contain due to drastic operational shifts during the pandemic, with costs rising 15% for South African compared to the prior year. Businesses were forced to quickly adapt their technology approaches last year, with many companies encouraging or requiring employees to work from home, a...
A Cyberattack Happens Every 11 Seconds, Choose Your Cloud Wisely
Sourced from International IDEA Cybersecurity experts predict that there is currently a cyberattack incident approximately every 11 seconds worldwide. This is almost double what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times more than five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). Aside from these concerning statistics, what is even more alarming is the degree to which the sophistication of these attacks has grown. We are just over a year and a half into the pandemic and the way organisations approach cybersecurity has been embraced at an accelerated pace. With the vast majority of companies adopting fully remote or hybrid working arrangements, there has been a firm focus on the implementation of additional cybersecurity measures to keep critical operations secure. But, despite all efforts ...
35% of SAns Have Never Used Dating Apps Because They Fear Scammers
Sourced from TechSpot and PC World. According to the findings of a study by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, dating app scammers pose a serious barrier to people wanting to use such services. In particular, 35% of respondents in South Africa are afraid to use them, as they fear being deceived by fraudsters, and 35% generally do not trust people in dating apps. However, only 17% of respondents were targeted by cybercriminals, and 34% who contacted fraudsters managed to avoid an attack. Millions of individuals use online dating applications or social networking sites in order to find a partner. But instead of finding love, many people encounter a con artist attempting to dupe them into giving money. Scammers are drawn to dating services because they know that people on these platforms are looki...
Top 5 Tips for Women to Build a Career in Cybersecurity
Image sourced from Texas News Today Representation of women in the cybersecurity industry has grown over the past years and, while this is positive, there is still room for improvement. Growth and success in this area require that everyone work together to amplify each other, but this is easier said than done. How can those interested in cybersecurity further develop their careers? What can those who would like to be an ally do? To answer this, women on the Cisco cybersecurity team across Africa share their journey and experiences and a few common themes stood out. Interestingly, not everyone in cybersecurity started with a technical background. Some of the women currently in cybersecurity started in non-stem-related courses. Cybersecurity was also seen as a growing industry with a choice ...
The Average Data Breach Costs Over $4-Million in 2021
According to data presented by Atlas VPN, the average financial damages caused by a data breach increased by nearly 10% year over year to $4.24 million in 2021. This is the highest spike since 2015. A data breach can have a number of negative implications for a business, including lost sales, a tarnished reputation, data recovery fees, and possibly employee layoffs. “The record-high average losses can be directly linked to the rapid onset of remote work, as it created many new loopholes for cybercriminals to exploit,” Edward Garb, a cybersecurity researcher at Atlas VPN, comments on the findings. The numbers are provided by IBM, where between May 2020 and March 2021, researchers conducted roughly 3,500 separate interviews with individuals from 17 countries and 537 firms that had experience...
South Africa Sees 42% Increase in Financial Malware in First Half of 2021
Sourced from Tech Advisor A combination of increasingly sophisticated propagation technologies and continued economic uncertainties resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have seen the number of financial malware attacks reported in South Africa during the first half of 2021 increase by more than 10,400 over the comparative period last year, according to Kaspersky research. “Of these attacks, 24% targeted corporate users. This makes financial malware attacks a significant cybersecurity risk facing the local market today across both the consumer and business sectors,” says Bethwel Opil, Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa. Remote Work Leads to Security Lapses Local organisations have become susceptible to financial malware as more employees work outside the relative safety of the ...
The High Cost of Cybercrime is Getting Higher
Image sourced from Finance Times. If cybercrime organizations could be publicly traded, we’d have an instant new multibillion-dollar industry sector. Indeed, cyber threats have become so pervasive that U.S. President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order aimed at improving federal cybersecurity in the wake of multiple significant cyberattacks, including the ransomware attack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline. Meanwhile, a broad coalition of experts in the industry, government, law enforcement, civil society, and international organizations have joined together in the Ransomware Task Force to build a framework for combatting ransomware. Ransomware attacks are only one method, however. Threat actors also use distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to ratchet up the p...
Ports in SA Have Mostly Returned to Operations Following Transnet Cyberattack
Image sourced from News24. Ports in South Africa have mostly returned to normal operations, according to the country’s government. Last week, SA’s port operations authority, Transnet, was struck by a massive ransomware attack that crippled its digital systems leaving South Africa’s key container terminal in disarray. “The return to operations is good news for the economy, as the Transnet ports and rail system are the backbone of the economy,” the ministry for public enterprises shared in a statement on Wednesday. Transnet was left with no choice but to declare force majeure following the cyberattack on 22 July 2021. Force majeure is a legal clause that wavers any liability from Transnet for not being able to provide promised services for its clients. The clause is usually reserved for “act...
Beware: The Top 5 Cybercrime Schemes Running Amid the Tokyo Olympics
Image sourced from T3. After an unprecedented year-long delay, the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics began in earnest last week. This time, all the events will take place with no spectators, which reduces physical risks – in terms of health and from a cybersecurity point of view (such as data theft using the vulnerabilities of public Wi-Fi at the stadium). However, sports enthusiasts should not forget that cybercriminals will aim to take advantage of fans’ eagerness to watch the Olympic Games by instigating various online fraud schemes. To get a better overview of how scammers are trying to monetise viewers’ interest, Kaspersky experts analysed Olympic-related phishing websites designed to steal users’ credentials. As a result, Kaspersky researchers found fake pages offering to stream various Oly...
11 Critical Steps Security Officers Need to Take During a Ransomware Attack
Sourced from Kaspersky Ransomware attacks have increased in volume, morphing and evolving through the years, especially recently, into the debilitating attacks we see today. According to a recent Global Threat Landscape Report from FortiGuard Labs, ransomware attacks increased sevenfold in the last half of 2020 and became even more disruptive. Recently, a massive ransomware attack on IT services provider Kaseya resulted in widespread threats against companies across 17 countries. Tactics from threat actors continue to shift and defenders need to not only continue to get the “basics” of defensive strategies correct but continuously evaluate their own organisation’s security policies to ensure they still provide adequate responses against today’s ransomware threat actors. CISOs are...
