Cybersecurity Report on Kenya’s Malware Attacks

According to the 33rd edition of the Cybersecurity Report by the Communications Authority of Kenya, 33,187,524 malware attack attempts targeting the critical information infrastructure sector were discovered by the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team Coordination Centre (National KE-CIRT/CC). This represents a 151.01% increase from the previous quarter.

However, the National KE-CIRT/CC detected over 900 million attacks in the country , which was a 24.83% drop from the 1.2 billion threat occurrences found during the previous quarter.

Owing to the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which are by nature vulnerable, the majority of these assaults took advantage of system vulnerabilities.

Furthermore, during the period under review, the National KE-CIRT/CC received 216 requests for digital investigations. Compared to the previous quarter, which ran this was a 20.00% drop.

Online abuse which encompasses a variety of hostile acts, such as harassment and cyberbullying, and fraud charges are the reason for most of these requests.

The National KE-CIRT/CC issued 8,524,407 notices between January and March 2024 due to the cyber-attacks. This was a 5.75% increase over the 8,061,267 advisories that were issued between October and December 2023.

According to the report, some of the reasons for the increase in cyber attacks include, limited investment in cybersecurity, outdated systems, default system login credentials, and limited cyber risk visibility.

Cyber threat actors used Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Google, WhatsApp, and a variety of blogs as their primary platforms to carry out a wide range of online attacks. Their goals included stealing confidential information, radicalizing young people, harming people’s reputations, carrying out revenge attacks, and making money.