Hackers target businesses, State agencies in fresh online attacks
Hackers prey on weak online systems. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
Unknown to many, the industry regulator has an arm — National Cybersecurity Centre (NCC ) — that offers free advisory services on cybersecurity matters.
The intervention of the regulator has become essential with the increase in cases of cyber-attacks on organisations.
Last Monday the University of Nairobi Twitter account was hacked and its blogsite defaced. The compromised Twitter handle was also used to share some blog site usernames and passwords.
The hack prompted action by the UoN and the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) to contain the attack and restore the affected system.
“We would like to remind the public that cybercrime is a major global challenge, and one that requires the concerted effort of all stakeholders globally, including the general public,” said CA in a statement.
Unknown to many, the industry regulator has an arm — National Cybersecurity Centre (NCC ) — that offers free advisory services on cybersecurity matters.
The intervention of the regulator has become essential with the increase in cases of cyber-attacks on organisations.
In 2012, 103 government websites were hacked including ministry, county and parastatal websites. This was followed by a recent information leak from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website by hacker dubbed Anonymous.
During the Africa Security Summit in Dar es Salaam, it was indicated that pay points have been deemed the latest targets for data theft and fraud.
Shoppers mainly use cards at retail outlets such as supermarkets, petrol stations and hotels. Statistics show that there are about 17,015 point of sale (PoS) machines in Kenya, translating into one PoS serving about 2,350 customers.
The State of Cybersecurity in Kenya has also revealed that home Internet users have not secured their networks with personal passwords, instead relaying on factory default settings which, makes them easy to hack.
Seventy per cent of Kenyan businesses are vulnerable to cybercrime yet most of them remain ignorant of these vulnerabilities. Nearly all Internet devices in the Kenyan cyber space are vulnerable to attacks, exposing more companies and individuals to the risk of malicious insiders and cyber criminals.
The Kenya Cyber Security Report 2015 further reveals that the vast majority of private companies and public organisations remain exposed to cybercrime and internal IT fraud and that three quarters of the Internet Protocol addresses scanned during the study were found to be vulnerable to remote attacks.
The most vulnerable businesses and homeowners are those that have installed low-cost home routers, Closed Circuit Television systems and public email servers on their networks.
