Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) has released the Sector Statistics Report for Q2 2018 and they usually indicate the cyber threat statistics for a given quarter.
There are several types of ‘cyber threats’ that CAK checks which include malware, web application attacks, botnets, system misconfigurations and online abuse.
The regulator also says there was an increase in cyber threat globally. In particular, there were rising cases of malware and sale of stolen data and credentials (personal data and credit card information.
These cyber threats ranged from denial of service attacks (DDOS), online abuse, online impersonation via social media accounts and domain names, web application attacks (website defacement and illegal access to online apps) and malware attacks.
Among the various cyber threats listed above, malware had the biggest delta change where CAK registered 1,844,897 threats between July and Sept 2018 which astronomically rose to 9,026,924 threats between October and December 2018. This is a 389% increase which is astounding and according to the regulator, it included “phishing attacks and attacks perpetrated through the exploitation of misconfigured systems”
Other threats like web application attacks, botnets, and online abuse saw decreased activities compared to what was recorded in the previous quarter with botnets registering the biggest decrease.
CAK also noted the increase in the number of fake mobile application hosted on popular online stores which deliver malware to mobile phones thereby defrauding unsuspecting users.
Also during the same period, CAK issued 12,197 cyber threat advisories of which the bulk were system misconfiguration (9,101). This was a 91% increase compared to the previous quarter.