Kenya is among African countries facing a possible increase in cybercrime this year, amid economic uncertainty occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Experts at global cybersecurity firm–Kaspersky, expect growing economic turbulence along with the impact of Covid-19 to also contribute to an increase in cybercrime across South Africa and Nigeria.
Even though every country globally has had to deal with the pandemic in its own way, developing economies across Africa have been hard hit by national lockdowns and limited business activity, the firm notes.
“And thanks to the increased connectedness of people, the rise in unemployment will not only see a spike in traditional crime, but this will also extend to the digital environment – something we are already seeing,” Lehan van den Heever, Enterprise Cyber Security Advisor for Kaspersky in Africa, said yesterday.
While the increase in these crimes will vary by country, African nations must prepare themselves for the inevitability of increases in malware that already topped 28 million by August last year, according to Kaspersky research.
Adding further pressure to the cyberattacks is an expected rise, along with changes in strategy, in Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).
“Our researchers anticipate that in 2021, across the globe though where Africa is not immune, there will be a change in threat actors’ approach to the execution of APT attacks," van den Heever said.
