27 Mar Poll highlights African’s attitude to cybercrime

A poll by Knowbe4 shows only one in five people in Africa are concerned with cybercrime. Yet, despite this we know that as technology advances across Africa, new windows are opening for hackers to compromise organisations and individuals.

Employees from various sectors in Ghana, Egypt, Botswana and Mauritius were polled for the research. Of those who took part 29% said they were ‘very concerned’ over cybercrime. A further 38% said they were ‘concerned’ and 19% said they were ‘somewhat concerned’, but did not understand the true nature of cybercrime and the threat it presents. This meant 14% of employees believed there were no risks to online business or the use of the internet.

“The problem is – everyone should be concerned about cybercrime,” says Anna Collard, SVIP Content Strategy & Evangelist at KnowBe4. “All it takes is for one person to introduce a virus to a system or open up a doorway or lose their passwords, and the entire organisation is put at risk.”

Regarding applications the employees were using; the most prevalent was the messaging app WhatsApp at 89%, followed by email applications at 80%, Facebook at 59%, Telegram at 46%, Instagram at 45%, Twitter at 42%, Zoom at 42%, LinkedIn at 36%, Microsoft Teams at 18%, Snapchat at 18%, Slack at 5%, WeChat at 4%, Signal at 4%. The remaining 1% was made up of other tools.

Acknowledging the popularity of both email applications and WhatsApp Collard added: “Both platforms are high-risk for cyber threats such as phishing, ransomware and fraud, so these should be a priority for organisations looking to drive awareness and training.”

Recently, many firms in South Africa have been urged to improve their cybersecurity, following rising cyber threats in the region.