cybersecurity
Uganda’s Parliament Passes Tougher Penalties for Cyber Criminals
Sourced from Travellers The Parliament of Uganda has passed the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022 privately moved by Muhammad Nsereko (Ind., Kampala Central), which imposes tough penalties for cyber-crimes. The Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022 sought to amend the Computer Misuse Act, 2011 to enhance the provisions on unauthorised access to information or data; prohibit the sharing of any information relating to a child without authorisation from a parent or guardian; to prohibit the sending or sharing of information that promotes hate speech. With deletion of clauses that sought to bar convicts under the law from holding public office or running for elections in 10 years, the rest of the clauses unanimously sailed through uncontested, with MP Gorreth Namugga (NUP, Mawogola Count...
Entrepreneurs must learn to tackle business risks in the Metaverse
Hyped as it is, the Metaverse remains largely undefined. It’s a challenge to answer the question “What is the Metaverse?” in part because its definition depends on whom you ask. As it stands today, the “Metaverse” includes virtual reality and what we might previously have called “cyberspace” — including digital assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrencies and more. In the rush to become the first to innovate in metaverse technology, companies are deprioritizing risk management. But risk management is as critical in the Metaverse as in our physical world — all risk is linked and must be managed in a connected way. If new entrants to the Metaverse are meant to protect against the overwhelming scale and cost of cyber risks, they must learn to identify these risks, continuously mon...
The Metaverse Reality Check that Your Business Needs
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Exclusive Networks Africa Continues its Expansion Plans Throughout the Continent
Exclusive Networks Africa, which represents the continental arm of this global, trusted cybersecurity specialist for digital infrastructure, is continuing its expansion into Africa, building presence within the sub-Saharan region in recent months, including the opening of a formal office in Lagos, Nigeria. This adds to the existing offices in South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius. Because Africa is seen as a growth market by the Group, it is widely recognised as an important investment destination, allowing for a strong focus on the company’s vendor partners, both current as well as potential. This is according to Anton Jacobsz, Managing Director of Exclusive Networks Africa, who clarifies: “Having previously operated in a number of countries across Africa with the support of representatives t...
Malware That Steals Credit Card Details Targets South African & Kenyan Gamers
Sourced from Tech Advisor In the first half of 2022, Kaspersky researchers detected increased activity of cybercriminals abusing gamers. Globally, the number of users attacked by malicious software, which gathers sensitive data and spreads under the guise of some of the most popular gaming titles, has increased by 13% compared to the first half of 2021. In attempts to download new games from untrustworthy resources for free, players got malicious software instead, losing their gaming accounts and even funds. These and other findings are part of the report of the gaming-related threat issued by Kaspersky. To assess the current landscape in gaming risks, Kaspersky experts observed the most popular PC and mobile games-related threats. Globally over the year (from 1 July, 2021 to 30 June, 2022...
How AI & Machine Learning Can Provide Defense Against Cybercrime
Nowadays, threat actors are leaning on new tools and techniques to improve the efficiency of their attacks. Only artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning move quickly enough to defend organisations in this evolving cyber threat landscape. “In the past three months, we’ve been seeing more speed and speed can kill,” says Derek Manky, Chief Security Strategist & VP Global Threat Intelligence at FortiGuard Labs. Threats have been getting into a system, hitting the targets, exfiltrating data, demanding ransom, and getting out of a system, much quicker than normal. This includes attackers capitalizing on new vulnerabilities, zero-days and n-days. They also appear to have become more aggressive, with double extortion, triple extortion and targeted attacks. “Their approaches are more ...
Microsoft Office Vulnerabilities Used to Attack African Users – Report
Russia-based internet cybersecurity firm Kaspersky says that the number of exploits for vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Office suite increased globally compared to Q1 2022. In Q2 2022 these exploits accounted for 82% of the total number of exploits across different platforms. This is according to the latest Kaspersky quarterly malware report. The firm says that the META (Middle East, Turkey and Africa) region also saw an increase in the attacks via MS Office vulnerabilities. MS Office vulnerabilities CVE-2021-40444, CVE-2017-0199, CVE-2017-11882 and CVE-2018-0802 were used by criminals most often during the second quarter, being exploited to attack more than 551,000 users in total. These attempts recorded in the report were countered by Kaspersky’s solutions. The company says that if the ...
Infoblox Global Survey Sheds Light on Protecting the Network from Blind Spots
A 2022 global state of security survey from Infoblox, the leader in cloud-first networking and security services, highlights the security concerns, fears, and costs from 1,100 IT respondents in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Australia, and Singapore. “The hybrid workplace is more reliant than ever on cloud-first technologies, but blind spots have emerged,” says Aric Ault, Senior Director of Channel for Infoblox EMEA. “The explosion of employee-owned technologies on the corporate network feeds IT teams’ growing fears over losing direct security controls and network visibility. This has become all the more concerning as breach costs top 1 million USD for 43 percent of surveyed organisations.” Ruan du Preez, Ve...
Malware That Can Take Over Computers is Skyrocketing in Africa
Sourced from Tech Advisor According to data collected by Russia-based cybersecurity provider Kaspersky, the number of backdoor computer malware detected in Q2 2022 for corporate users in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria has significantly increased compared to the previous quarter. Currently, numbers are hitting new records and posing challenges to cybersecurity professionals in enterprise and government agencies. “Backdoors enable a series of long unnoticed cyberespionage campaigns, which result in significant financial or reputational losses and may disrupt the victim organisation’s operations. Corporate systems should be constantly audited and carefully monitored for hidden threats,” comments Dr Amin Hasbini, Head of Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), Middle East, Türkiye and Afri...
Curve Finance resolves site exploit, directs users to revoke any recent contracts
On Aug 9, automated market maker Curve Finance took to Twitter to warn users of an exploit on its site. The team behind the protocol noted that the issue, which appeared to be an attack from a malicious actor, was affecting the service’s nameserver and frontend. Don’t use https://t.co/vOeMYOTq0l site – nameserver is compromised. Investigation is ongoing: likely the NS itself has a problem — Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) August 9, 2022 Curve stated via Twitter that its exchange — which is a separate product — appeared to be unaffected by the attack, as it uses a different DNS provider. However, the issue was quickly addressed by the team. An hour after the initial warning, Curve said it had both found and reverted the issue, directing users to have approved any contracts o...
The Crypto Collapse & Rising DDoS Smart Attacks
Image sourced from Shutterstock. During Q2 2022, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks reached a new level as the share of smart attacks and average duration saw steep increases. Compared to the previous year, the average duration of a DDoS attack rose 100 times, reaching 3,000 minutes. The share of smart attacks almost broke the four-year record, accounting for nearly 50% of the total. Experts also expect an increase in overall DDoS activity, especially with the recent collapse of cryptocurrency. These and other findings are part of a quarterly DDoS report issued by Kaspersky. A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is designed to hinder the normal functioning of a website or crash it completely. During an attack (which usually targets government institutions, retail or ...
VC Roundup: Lightning Network payment rail, DeFi trading platform and blockchain security firm raise millions
Even with the onset of crypto winter, 2022 has been a watershed year for venture capital funding. Crypto and blockchain companies collectively raised $30.3 billion in venture capital in the first half of 2022, exceeding all of last year’s totals. While the number of deals has declined in recent months, startups at the intersection of blockchain payments, decentralized finance (DeFi) and cybersecurity are still attracting sizable interest from the VC community. The latest edition of VC Roundup highlights some of the most intriguing funding deals of the past month. Related: The risks and benefits of VCs for crypto communities ZEBEDEE closes $35M Series B ZEBEDEE, a Bitcoin (BTC)-powered payment processor for the gaming industry, has raised $35 million from several investors i...
