Cyber Attacks On Africa Are Soaring

Africa is the lowest ranked continent on cyber security, Internet-based attacks, many experts and digital security practitioners say. 

According to some of these experts, the shortage, lack, or dilapidated conditions of high tech infrastructure, as well as the lack of well thought-out government policies for cybersecurity make Africa the most exposed continent to cyber threats and yet the least equipped to deal with the high and growing rate of cyber threats.

Last month the Ethiopian Information Network Security Agency (INSA) reported that a cyberattack directed at financial institutions in the country has happened but is now being blocked. The previous month in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, it was reported that cyberattacks on Ethiopian government and large organisations have increased from 479 and 576 to 791 grand attacks annually during the past three successive years.

Ethiopian Cyber Emergency Readiness and Response Team (Ethio-CERT), a department within the agency in charge of protecting key infrastructures and financial institutions, says that the attack was foiled before it causes serious damage althouigh the report does not specify hich financial institutions were targeted in cyberattack. 

Ethiopia has shut down the Internet at least twice every year since 2015, whether during anti-government protests, state of emergency, or to limit exam cheating. For every day the Internet is blocked, NetBlocks estimates Ethiopia loses over $4.4 million. Prime minister Abiy Ahmed has promised to boost the tech scene.

When it comes to internet disruptions in Africa, Ethiopia isn’t an anomaly. At least 22 African states have partially or fully blocked the Internet or obstructed social media networks in the past five years due to a political uprising Algeria and Sudan, before, during or after elections in DR Congo and Benin and ahead of national examinations in Algeria and Somalia.

Across the African continent, internet stoppages are happening for longer, more sophisticated, and targeted, with dictators being the most frequent attackers.

The current Internet penetration rate is 15.4% in Ethiopia and the governmnet it is currently attempting a broad expansion of access throughout the country, however, three-quarters of the country's Internet cafés are in the capital city, Addis Ababa, and even there access is often slow and unreliable.

In South Africa, hackers attacked several key organisations in October, 2019, impacting everything from workers’ paychecks to 112 emergency calls. While Johannesburg is nicknamed 'the City of Gold' when thieves attacked the City and several South African banks recently, they weren’t looking for gold. They weren’t even looking for rand notes. These bank robbers were looking for the modern criminal’s currency of choice, Bitcoin. 

The world has lost $1.5 trillion in 2018 due to cyberattacks and is predicted to lose as much as $6 trillion by 2021.

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