Security
Airtel, MTN and Stanbic Bank Fall Victim to Major Data Breach in Uganda
Sourced from IDG Connect Mobile money transaction company, Pegasus technologies has suffered a major data breach resulting in the loss of billions of Ugandan Shillings – according to PLM Daily. The breach is said to have impacted telcos, Airtel and MTN Uganda, as well as Stanbic Bank, Uganda’s largest bank. “Stanbic Bank Uganda, MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda inform the public and their customers that on Saturday 3 October 2020, a third-party service provider experienced a system incident which impacted Bank to Mobile Money transactions. All Bank to Mobile Money/Wallet services have since been temporarily suspended,” reads an official statement from the companies. “This system incident has had no impact on any balances on both Bank and Mobile Money accounts. Our technical teams are analysing...
Data Protection in an Evolving Threat Landscape
Sourced from CSO. Information Technology (IT) has become simpler and more complex. This is best described with the cloud making it easier to consume while adding challenges of massive data growth, increased siloes and growing numbers of workloads. In addition, ransomware and malware attacks are a very valid concern. Data protection needs to be modernised to meet changing needs, simplified to mitigate complexity, and flexible to adapt to a changing world. Above all, data needs to be consolidated to provide an all-encompassing view it as a strategic business asset, moving beyond backups to data management. In a data-driven world the impact of a disaster is magnified With the emergence and growth of cloud technologies, data outages have become far less frequent. However, the impact of an outa...
NZ Stock Exchange DDoS Attacks Remind Enterprises to Check Defence Security
Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM Division at Networks Unlimited Africa At the end of August, a series of cyberattacks on the New Zealand Stock Exchange over five consecutive days forced it to halt trading for a number of hours for four out of those five days. The attacks raised questions about the stock exchange’s security, as well as the threat actors’ underlying motives. “This was a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) incidents, in which threat actors disrupted the normal traffic to the enterprise by overwhelming the target with a flood of internet traffic at volumes that the system just couldn’t handle,” explains Risna Steenkamp, General Manager: ESM at value-added distributor Networks Unlimited Africa. “In financial services terms, the New Zealand Stock Exchange is a re...
T-Systems and Fortinet to Launch Cyber Security Academy in South Africa
T-Systems and Fortinet have teamed up to launch a Cyber Security Academy that’s accessible to local South African youth. The new Academy is expected to include Fortinet’s Network Security Expert (NSE) certifications, helping participants build cybersecurity awareness skills and ultimately tackle the global cybersecurity workforce shortage. “Cybersecurity has become a top C-level priority across the globe with skills in high demand. With the addition of this focus to our ICT Academy, we are empowering participants with new skills that will make them even more employable,” explains Marcus Karuppan, ICT Academy Manager at T-Systems South Africa. “T-Systems has been a Fortinet partner for many years. Building on our relationship, we are now collaborating with them to focus on cybersecurity ski...
CBN: Nigeria far from financial inclusion target
A report by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access has said that Nigeria is far from achieving its financial inclusion target in 2020. The CBN disclosed this in the report titled ‘Assessment of women’s financial inclusion in Nigeria’ for December 2019 period which was released on Monday. Part of the report read, “Not surprisingly, financial exclusion stands at 36 per cent for women and 24 per cent for men. “The relative gender gap related to financial inclusion is ~20-30 per cent, placing Nigeria below its peers. “Since 2012, although women’s exclusion has dropped, the gender gap has grown, revealing that men’s inclusion has improved more rapidly than women’s. “The National Financial Inclusion Strategy was launched in 2012 to reduce financial exclus...
How Cybercriminals are Using the PS5 to Scam Internet Users
Cybercriminals are becoming more and more interested in the PlayStation 5, according to research from Kaspersky. In the period of July – September 2020, almost 150 suspicious web resources around the world included the word ‘PlayStation’ in their names. The phishing websites were mainly offering the chance to pre-order PlayStation 5 by leaving a prepayment or personal information. On some sites, it was supposedly even possible to purchase a console at a reduced price. There were also resources where the previous version of the console – PlayStation 4 – was on offer for much lower prices, with the major discounts attributed to the release of PS5. “We want to remind users that if something looks too good to be true on the Internet, then it’s most probably a scam,” says Tatyana Sidorina,...
NIS deploys ‘special force’ to fight bandits in North-west
YouTube The Nigerian Immigration Service on Monday said it will deploy a 2,000-strong Special Force in the North-west to restore peace and security in the region. The Comptroller General, Muhammad Babandede, stated this during the passing out parade of 320 First Batch of pioneer Special Force of the Service, at the NIS Training School in Kano. Babandede said the deployment was imperative to address security challenges and enhance peacebuilding process in the region. He noted that special operation in the North-west “was a definitive military initiative”, to respond to criminal activities like arson; kidnapping, armed banditry and cattle rustling prevalent in the area. He said: “The level of insecurity in the North-west zone has constituted a threat to national security. “This training i...
President Buhari condemns attack on Governor Zulum’s convoy
President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the ambush on entourage of Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno, which led to the death of security men and some operatives of Civilian-JTF. The President made the condemnation in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Saturday. He described the attack, on Maiduguri-Baga route, as an orchestrated sabotage against long planned return of displaced persons to their local communities. Buhari noted, with deep sympathy, the loss of lives of security men on the convoy, ahead of the return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), commiserating with their families and loved ones. The president advised the government of Borno, working with security and intelligence agencies, to remain firm in their determinat...
South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria Suffer 28 Million Malware Attacks
Sourced from IDG Connect More than 28 million malware attacks have been recorded in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria so far this year, according to research from Kaspersky, as well as 102 million detections of ‘grey zone’ software or potentially unwanted programs (PUAs). PUAs are programs that are usually not considered to be malicious by themselves. However, they are generally influencing user experience in a negative way. For instance, adware fills user device with ads; aggressive monetising software propagates unrequested paid offers; downloaders may download even more various applications on the device, sometimes malicious ones. While calculating interim results of threat landscape activity in African countries, the researchers noticed that PUAs attack users almost four times more often...
Certain TikTok Accounts are Promoting Scam Apps, Research Shows
Sourced from Cosmico Avast claims to have found a total of seven “adware scam apps that were available on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store”. These apps have since been downloaded over 2.4 million times, generating roughly $500,000 for the creators. The security firm also discovered three accounts that are ‘aggressively’ pushing the apps on TikTok, one of which has more than 300K followers, while on Instagram a profile with more than 5,000 followers has been promoting one of the apps. “The apps we discovered are scams and violate both Google’s and Apple’s app policies by either making misleading claims around app functionalities or serving ads outside of the app and hiding the original app icon soon after the app is installed,” says Jakub Vávra, Avast threat analyst. “It i...
5 Ways to Effectively Defend Against Cyberthreats
Sourced from Republic Title Garmin and Twitter recently joined the ranks of a string of global organisations that have fallen victim to crippling cyberattacks. A little closer to home, last year, the City of Johannesburg’s network was also hacked and held ransom for a hefty 4 bitcoins (worth around R520 000 at the time). While the nature of these attacks may be different, it’s clear that cybercrime is on the rise and companies of all sizes and across all sectors need to be vigilant. An ideal environment for cybercrime It’s no surprise that these attacks are becoming more common in today’s increasingly connected society. The rise of online applications and services means unprotected users are more exposed than ever before. Added to this, the current pandemic has pushed man...
Two Alleged Digtial Fraudsters Arrested in Kenya
Sourced from Republic Title Two men have been arrested in Kenya after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) suspected the duo of fraud. According to The Star, the suspects, Kevin Sagini Oroko (23) and Dominic Otiso Nyabuto (27) were “apprehended from their hideout at Miwani Estate within Machakos town”. In their possession, authorities reportedly found more than 600 Safaricom and Airtel Sim Cards, 96 National ID cards, a number of mobile phones, KCB Inua Jamii Cash Transfer Cards, 16 Bank Agent Transaction Registers, two gambling machines, and a laptop – these items have since been confiscated. Gadgets Africa says that the DCI has been on actively breaking down schemes concocted by digital criminals over the last year – this includes plots where fraudsters send scam messages wit...
