Cyber crimes open investment window for IT security firms

Increased insecurity on the Internet in Kenya has provided a fertile ground for IT security solutions firms and learning institutions to open shop or offer new courses for this market segment.

SoftLock, an Egyptian information security firm which partnered with Strathmore University this week to launch a digital security academy, becomes the latest firm to venture into this area.

Others are Kaspersky Lab, the world’s largest privately held vendor of IT protection solutions, which opened its regional branch office in Nairobi last year and Norton that has increased the number of its local distribution channels.

The increased activity by the IT security providers is mainly driven by the improved international Internet traffic provided by the four undersea cable fibre optics, TEAMs, SEACOM, EASSy and LION but which has exposed many corporate as well as small and medium-sized enterprises to cyber crimes.

A recent data by Telecommunication Service Providers of Kenya and Industry Computer Security and Incident Response Team, catalogued the top cyber threats facing Kenyan businesses as the Slammer Worm, which provides a hacker remote access once it infects a system.

The hacker can then force servers or web browsers to disclose confidential information.

Mariposa, a trojan horse — a malicious software that pretends to provide legitimate services — also gives hackers remote control of computers.

“As broadband infrastructure in the region continues to evolve, the opportunity for cybercriminal activity increases. As more people move towards a digital way of life, cybercriminals see an opportunity to exploit this for their own gain,” said Kaspersky Lab channel sales manager Bethwel Opil who is responsible for five markets in the region.

“It is for this very reason that we are passionate about creating awareness of IT security in the region, as well as being able to offer appropriate solutions to this market.”

Kaspersky says that although Kenya is ranked as moderate risk category in regard to infection via the Internet in Africa, in terms of local infections, Kaspersky Lab products detected malicious programmes in 49 of every 100 computers , a figure it says is certainly worrying.

While Kaspersky and Norton mainly deal with solutions to mitigate risks such as computer virus infections, a bigger challenge has been human capacity to address some of the security threats, which the partnership between Strathmore and Softlock intend to address.

The digital security academy seeks to support capacity development for critical data and information protection — a key source of insecurity and financial losses for governments and enterprises in the region.

“We set out to establish a world-class cyber security training academy to offer hands-on training to experts in sensitive fields a while back and today we are happy to launch the Strathmore-Softlock Digital Security Academy,” Joseph Sevilla, during the launch early this week.

Dr Sevilla said that 90 per cent of the training at the academy would be hands-on, and targets high level experts in enterprises including chief information officers, information security managers, system administrators and IT professionals.

The Strathmore partnership comes on the backdrop of a growing demand for cyber security experts due to the rising number of related cyber crimes that have seen the government lose some of experts it had trained in this field to the private sector due to low pay.

Last year, more than 100 government websites were attacked, as it lost four of six security experts it had trained to the private companies.

The Strathmore deal becomes the latest in a string of industry-university partnerships in Kenya aimed at bridging the skills gap between graduates’ competencies and practical job requirements — to meet market demands.

SoftLock will equip the university with $30 million (Sh2.62 billion) training infrastructure while the institution implements the project.

Last year, US technology firm IBM partnered with Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Riara University and Strathmore to provide training on the latest enterprise software and systems.

The three universities will have free access to IBM’s experts, real time global case studies from a range of industries and an extensive library of IT curricula for computer science, business and other degree programmes.

Abdulrahman Al-Kassar, a senior manager at SoftLock Security, said the academy had invested heavily in research and collaboration tools to ensure currency and syncing with evolving cyber security techniques.

“This is possibly the most advanced such training curricular and centre in East and Central Africa,” he said during the launch on Tuesday, adding the threats to information security have continued to mutate.

“Pervasive social media applications like WhatsApp and Facebook are now being used to harvest data and for spying.”

The arrival on undersea fibre optic cables to Kenya in 2009 has revolutionised both the technology and economic sectors. Download speeds increased from 670.89Kbps in 2009 to 3,806.03Kbps in 2011.

“While this certainly indicates that Kenya is ‘booming’ in terms of Internet penetration and growth, our concern lies in the question of whether consumers and businesses alike are aware that with such growth comes ‘great responsibility’ — especially from an IT security point of view when making use of the Internet,” said Mr Opil.

Consumers and businesses need to be equipped with the right tools and understand how to protect themselves from falling victims to cyber criminals.

The experts say that the starting point to getting it right is to ensure some basic form of protection on devices being used to access the Internet — personal computers, smartphones and tablets, among others — such as anti-virus solution for PCs or mobile security solutions for Android devices.