Cybercrime in Kenya is on the rise with an average of one million online crimes reported every day, according to the recently released Economic Survey 2023.
These online attacks are threatening the well-being of business and individuals in the country. The numbers are projected to rise further as documented in KNBS 2023 report, attributable to the sophisticated and dynamic nature of cyber threats.
The renewed threats have increased the demand for technology based courses with a study on the net job market, revealing a spike in demand for training in web development, cyberattack, and design.
Kaspersky’s Digital Footprint Intelligence (DFI) study revealed that those who sign up for training learn how to generate malware and phishing pages, infiltrate corporate infrastructure, and hack firms’ web and mobile applications, among other talents that cost businesses millions of dollars.
Read: Kenya’s New Cyber Shujaa Program Targets To Train 2,000 Youth As Cybersecurity Experts
Data from the Economic Survey show that in the period under review, system vulnerabilities increased significantly from 58 million in 2021 to 452.4 million in 2022, highlighting the pressing need for organisations to prioritise security patching and risk mitigation strategies.
On the contrary, increased investment in web application security and greater awareness of potential threats saw attacks on web application declined from 7.0 million in 2021 to 1.0 million in 2022
Unemployment, lack of integrity, shortage of technical skills, and easy access to IT tools are some of the reasons behind the rise in demand for net skills.
Despite having reduced from 181.9 million to 163.9 million, malware was still the leading threat in Kenya.
A malware is a software designed with the intention of damaging services, stealing data.
Botnet also known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) came second with 82.7 million attempts, a drop from 92.1 million in 2021.
DDoS are attacks that occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers.
Web application attacks came a distant third with one million attempts down from seven million in 2021.
Kabarak University have been the latest victim of cybercriminals.
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