Kaspersky identifies the top IT security threats in Africa
Research conducted by Kaspersky identified that globally APT groups are evolving and upgrading their toolsets to steal sensitive information, with a rise in hackers for hire in the first two quarters of 2020.
Currently in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, APT groups are exploiting the uncertainty of COVID-19. While Kaspersky’s research shows an overall decrease in certain malware types in sub Saharan Africa in the first half of 2020, the company stresses that the human cyber threat still remains, with the STOP ransomware, increasing in popularity for cybercriminals.
In addition certain financial malware types are gaining traction due to their unique techniques to monetise data. “This emphasises that attacks are becoming more targeted and at specific companies, in specific regions and for specific purposes,” commented Kaspersky, who adds that “while prevention is ideal, detection is a must.”
High risk industries facing attacks include the government, education, healthcare, and military, with the top three threat actors being TransparentTribe, Oilrig, and MuddyWater.
“The remainder of the year will likely see APT groups and hacking-for-hire threat actors increase in prominence across the globe. Africa will continue to see more sophisticated APTs emerge and we also suspect that the hacking-for-hire actor type could target companies in Africa in the future. We also anticipate that cybercriminals will increase targeted ransomware deployment using different ways. These can range from trojanised cracked software to exploitation across the supply chain of the targeted industry. Data breaches will certainly become more commonplace especially as people will continue to work remotely for the foreseeable future while exposing their systems to the Internet without adequate protection,” commented Says Maher Yamout, Senior Security Research, Global Research & Analysis Team at Kaspersky.
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