Insiders remain one of the key threats to corporate cybersecurity in East Africa – Report
Insider-related cybersecurity incidents in East Africa is one of the key threats in East Africa. This is according to a recent report from cybersecurity firm, Dimension Data.
The report says insider-related cybersecurity incidents in East Africa have increased by 55 percent in the last three months. Which is largely attributed to malicious employees and contractors.
The sudden spike has majorly been due to the work-from-home shift. It’s apparent that many companies have let their employees work from home due to the ongoing pandemic whenever possible.
Because of this, attackers have woken up to capitalize on this opportunity. They have been exploiting publicly available weak systems and overwhelmed security controls designed to monitor and capture activities that pose potential risks.
Apparently, most firms were not prepared for such work environments. Dimension Data says most security controls failed to take charge since they are “intended for traditional on-premise infrastructure.”
As such, they have security gaps when employees remotely connect to company resources from mobile devices and external networks.
Despite the large contribution played by insiders, most incidences have also been linked to employee negligence. Such as ignoring corporate cybersecurity policies, misuse of data, and installation of unauthorized applications among others
Most hackers are targeting the Financial Services Industry (FSI), majorly due to the immediate monetary gain.
Hackers are getting smarter, too. They are purchasing command and control systems in other countries and have found new ways to distribute their server networks.
Dimension Data Intelligent Security business’ head in East Africa, Ishmael Muli, says cybercriminals are ushering the new era of automated attacks and businesses should move along too. This will help detect threats earlier and reduce average remediation time.
“The future is going to be all about how to recover fast from an attack as networks, systems and processes get more sophisticated for integration,” he said.
In light of the firm’s latest report, the company launched Dimension Data Intelligent Security business in East Africa uniting all of its security offerings previously managed by its subsidiary brands Dimension Data East Africa and Internet Solutions into one business. The firm still bets on its global partner, NTT Ltd, for security solutions.
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