Cyber criminals are bleeding Africa's capital market and the revenue loss is huge

desmond frimpong

September 22, 2017 1:24 PM

The Africa Cyber Security Report 2016 ranks banking as the leading risk sector.

Kenyan-based IT firm, Serianu Limited has revealed that African countries lost at least $2 billion in cyber attacks in 2016, that is according to their 2016 cybercrime report.

The report showed that five African countries lost a combined US$895million to the menace--comprising an indirect loss of $537m and direct loss of $358m.

The breakdown of the report shows that Nigeria recorded the highest figure of US$550 million, followed by Kenya and Tanzania with US$175 million and US$85 million respectively. Ghana and Uganda also recorded US$50 million and US$35 million respectively.

According to Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity report over one-third of organizations that experienced a breach in 2016 reported substantial customer, opportunity and revenue loss of more than 20 percent.

The report further reveals that insider threats, which refer to fraud involving information or employee abuse of IT systems and information, are a bigger security threat compared to outsiders for African organisations.

Security professionals are struggling to demonstrate business value to senior management because they are providing very technical operational metrics whereas business managers are looking for more business-oriented metrics.

Lack of practical regulatory guidance from industry regulators and government is leading to poorly implemented and unenforceable security controls since they are not local-focused but rather copied and pasted regulations,” the Serianu report states.

It also indicated that ICT security expenditure in African countries is estimated to grow from approximately US$1.24 billion in 2015 to US$3.6 billion in 2020.

To achieve this, the Serianu report recommends that African countries need to harden their infrastructure and services to enhance the resilience of the underlying foundation and combat information security threats.

“African countries need to enhance the security competencies of technology users and ICT security practitioners. This will ensure that there is greater adoption of essential security practices among technology users and ensure that ICT security practitioners have adequate knowledge and capability in managing ICT security risks.

Given the borderless nature of cyber threats, it is important for African countries to continue working closely with international counterparts and also encourage cross-border collaboration within the continent,” the report states.

desmond frimpong

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