Following improved measures to guard against attacks by criminals deploying cyber instruments, Nigeria and some other countries in Africa recorded a decline in cyberattacks in 2023. This comes against a reported increase in banking malware attacks in Nigeria.

According to a report by Kaspersky, in the African region, Kaspersky’s telemetry showed that Nigeria saw an overall decrease in all threats by 10 per cent while banking malware attacks designed to collect online banking credentials and other sensitive information from infected machines increased by eight per cent.

The report also said that cyberthreats in South Africa decreased by 29 per cent in 2023 as compared to 2022. At the same time, phishing attacks that use social engineering tactics to scam people into revealing sensitive information rose by 29 per cent. Over the same period, Kenya saw a decrease in overall threats by eight per cent while an increase was seen in ransomware attacks by 68 per cent, backdoors by 47 per cent, exploits by 22 per cent and phishing by 19 per cent.

The report was the outcome of discussion by experts on the evolution of the cyber threat landscape in the region during its 9th annual Cyber Security Weekend – META 2024, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The focal point of the discussions was the security of emerging technology trends such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), that are influencing the scale of modern threats. In parallel, threats targeting industrial control systems within critical infrastructure, in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia were also discussed. Kaspersky’s Cyber Immunity approach took centre stage as a way to create solutions that are virtually impossible to compromise and that minimise the number of potential vulnerabilities.

According to Kaspersky’s analysis, online threats caused by vulnerabilities on web pages, in emails or webservices, have fluctuated significantly in the region. Turkiye saw the highest number of users affected by online threats (41.8%), followed by Kenya (39.2%), Qatar (38.8%) and South Africa (35%). Fewer users were affected in Oman (23.4%) and Egypt (27.4%) followed by Saudi Arabia (29.9%) and Kuwait (30.8%). “As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, cyber threats continue to become diverse and sophisticated.

This trend is particularly evident due to the emergence of advanced technologies like AI and the escalating geopolitical and economic turbulence within the Middle East, Turkiye, Africa (META) region. These factors collectively contribute to the surge in cybercrime and the heightened complexity of cyberattacks,” Amin Hasbini, Director of META Research Center Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), Kaspersky, said.