Cyber threats in Kenya up 142pc despite increased issuance of advisories

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 11 – Kenya continues to witness increased cyber threats despite the issuance of more advisories underlying a bid gap in addressing such threats which have been exacerbated by increased internet usage.

The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged more Kenyans to adopt the internet in various activities while many companies opted for a work-from-home schedule, an issue that posed a lot of threats to the safety of companies’ data.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), cybersecurity advisories issued to companies increased by 3,693 percent from 81,727 in 2020 to 3.1 million advisories in 2021.

The increased advisories were attributed to new systems to detect cybercrimes installed.

Over the same period, total cyber threats rose by 142 percent from 139.1 million to 339.1 million.

Out of the cyber threats reported, system vulnerabilities had the highest increment from 114,675 in 2020 to 58 million in 2021.

Reported Botnet/DDOs threats also increased from 4.1 million in 2020 to 92.1 million in 2021

This was attributed to the growing number of cyber threat actors such as hacktivists, state-sponsored groups, organized cybercriminals, and cyber terrorists.

The actors targeted mainly the healthcare systems, utility providers, public infrastructure, insurance firms, schools, government organizations, and financial institutions.