Compared to the same period in 2020, Nigeria has recorded a 13 percent decline in the number of phishing attacks recorded and blocked by Kaspersky for the first half of this year. South Africa and Kenya also recorded a 17% and 48% decline respectively.
The decline, according to Kaspersky does suggest and support research trends – that cybercriminals have become more targeted, focusing their efforts on advanced persistent threat (APT) campaigns in Africa – the phishing threat is still very prevalent.
“This decrease is in line with global trends and supports the decline that Kaspersky research identified happening through the course of last year already. Of course, this does not mean that organisations and consumers can ignore the risk of traditional cybercrime attacks or that phishing, as well as spam, are still not of significant concern across Africa. Instead, people need to become even more aware of cybersecurity best practices and remain vigilant to protect their personal and business systems from the risk of compromise,” said Bethwel Opil, Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa.
For instance, spam constituted almost 30% of email traffic in South Africa and close to 35% in Kenya in H1 2021. The number of phishing attacks recorded in South Africa for the first half of 2021 exceeded one million at 1 031 006. In Kenya phishing attacks were recorded at 601 557, and in Nigeria 393 569. Reaching over two million attacks combined highlights that phishing is still a significant threat in Africa and illustrates the importance of ensuring cybersecurity solutions are installed on all connected devices.
“Phishing and spam remain some of the most effective ways of targeting unsuspecting users and gaining access into corporate systems or compromising personal financial and other information that can be used to perpetrate identity theft,” added Opil.
Phishing attacks across the continent have baited unsuspecting victims into handing over bank information, ID numbers and more.