The recent alert issued by the communications regulator for companies and individuals to beware of fake software is quite timely.
Kenyan businesses have been losing billions of shillings and sensitive information annually to hackers.
The country lost about Sh18 billion to cybercrime in 2016, according to a survey by the Communications Authority of Kenya and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. The Central Bank of Kenya warned last year that local banks were exposed to cyber-attacks and ICT fraud.
While financial institutions have set out to ease convenience for their customers with online financial transactions, this has made them an easier target for cyber-attacks thus the need to install secure systems to ward them off.
The menace has not spared government agencies in the country either, which just goes to show the great lengths the hackers can go to.
According to the Communications Authority of Kenya, hackers have now changed tack and are using third party software to deliver threats to users in a bid to steal their personal data.
There is need to heed the regulator’s warning as purchasing fake software may prove detrimental in the long run. It doesn’t take much to set up structures that will ensure that caution is taken when dealing with outsourced software products and personnel.
Vendors who have been wooing users with free anti-malware products have been cited as an easy loophole for the hackers. This trend has been cited as one of the avenues that have been fuelling cybercrime as it grants criminals access to computer systems.
We aver that the only way to beat the cyber criminals is by ensuring that the systems used by institutions and individuals are beefed up. Users must also be enlightened on the folly of rushing free software whose source cannot be verified.
As the common saying goes: Cheap can be very expensive and damaging to computer users.
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