24 Sep Africa sees decline in phishing attacks – but more to be done

Kaspersky has recorded a decline in the number of phishing attacks for the first half of the year, in comparison to the same period last year. South Africa saw a 17% decline, Nigeria a 13% and Kenya an impressive 48% declines in phishing attacks.

The figures support trends being found in studies that cybercriminals are becoming more targeted and are focusing efforts on advanced persistent threat (APT) campaigns in Africa.

In the first half of the year though more than two million phishing attacks were recorded across South Africa (1,031,006 attacks), Kenya (601,557 attacks) and Nigeria (393,569 attacks) demonstrating that it remains a significant threat for the region.

Encouragingly, the overwhelming majority of IT decision makers in South Africa and Kenya say their increasingly focusing on cyber security.

Bethwel Opil, Enterprise Sales Manager at Kaspersky in Africa, commented: “This decrease is in line with global trends and supports the decline that Kaspersky research identified happening through the course of last year already.

“Of course, this does not mean that organisations and consumers can ignore the risk of traditional cybercrime attacks or that phishing, as well as spam, are still not of significant concern across Africa. Instead, people need to become even more aware of cybersecurity best practice and remain vigilant to protect their personal and business systems from the risk of compromise”.