NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 31- Kenyan firms were hit by 35.2 million cyber threats between July to September which was a 152.9 percent increase from the 13.9 million threat events detected in the previous quarter, new data shows.
The data from the Communication Authority of Kenya reveals that its incident response center detected an increase in Malware, Web Application Attacks, System Vulnerabilities cases.
The rise in cases was greatly influenced by the move to working remotely and increased uptake of e-commerce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This increased vulnerability of organizations and businesses to cybercriminals who targeted remote working systems and tools, and e-commerce sites for fraudulent gains,” reads the report.
During this period, there was also an increase in online abuse and online fraud cases reported to the National KE-CIRT/CC.
However, in the period under review, there was a decrease in impersonation cases, which is attributed to increased awareness campaigns to the public across the print media, television, and social media platforms, geared towards protecting digital footprints, as well as the operationalization of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, which is a deterrent measure.
“Child abuse cases remained at a constant as the majority of children were still home due to the pandemic with a possibility of unsupervised access to the Internet for education and socialization purposes,” said the CA.
Cyberbullying and Internet trolling cases were also on the rise, with these being used for malicious intent across Kenyan domains and social media platforms.
National KE-CIRT/CC received 354 requests from investigative agencies.
This was a 36.15 percent increase in requests received as compared to 260 in the previous period April – June 2020.
During this period, there was an increase in child online abuse, online abuse, and online fraud.
Of these requests, 1.7percent related to child online abuse, 36.2percent being attributed to online abuse, and 27.4 percent being linked to online fraud.
The CA’s cyber intelligence team consequently issued 21,785 cyber threat advisories to the affected, a 4.4 percent rise from 20, 865 reported between April to June 2020.