Companies report growth in cyber-attacks

Companies report growth in cyber-attacks

Companies recorded an increase in insider-related cyber-attacks across East Africa, according to Dimension Data.
The company, which deals in technology solutions, indicates that at least companies across the region saw a 55 per cent in cyber-attacks in the last three months from March.
This was mainly because a number of businesses had shifted their operations online after measures, which included lockdowns, were introduced to curb the spread of Covid-19.
However, many companies were not prepared and lacked active monitoring of their IT infrastructure.

The spike, Dimension Data said, resulted from attackers taking advantage of weak publicly available systems compared to security controls that are designed to monitor and capture activities on traditional on-premise infrastructure.
The report also notes that the spike could have been a result of more connections or overloads form external sources.

Employee negligence
Speaking at the launch of the Dimension Data Intelligent Security business unit in East Africa, Mr Ishmael Muli, the unit’s head, said that although insider threats are largely attributed to malicious employees and contractors, data from the company’s Threat Intelligence Centre, indicated most incidences in the region originate from employee negligence and other close associates ignoring corporate cyber security policies, misuse of data and installing unauthorised applications, among others.
Mr Muli also noted that organisations must invest in threat intelligence services to gain regular visibility of what is happening within their internal networks.
Mr Albert Mucunguzi, the ICT Association of Uganda chairman, said during the lockdown it had been important for companies to restrict access to high risk information and services to office.

According to the Global Threat Intelligence Report 2020 by NTT Limited, a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), the first half of the year saw an increase in reconnaissance attacks, accounting for 40 per cent of all observations in the Middle East and Africa.
The report also notes that there was an increase in web application attacks mainll on common Content Management Systems such as Joomla and WordPress, which accounted for over 20 per cent of observed attacks.