Cybercrime Increases 37% As Internet Use Increases

Cybercrime and related threats have risen this year as Kenya’s internet and data subscriptions jumped to 46.7 million.

Data from the Kenya Communications Authority shows that 38.8 million cyberattacks were recorded from April to June, an increase of 37.3 percent between January and March, when 28.2 million cyber threats were detected.

According to the report, the increase is due to the significant increase in attacks targeting Internet of Things devices, such as smartphones, household appliances and security systems.

“There has been an increase in activity by organized cybercrime groups, the adoption of more sophisticated tools by ransomware gangs, an increase in attacks targeting critical systems and services, an increase in application vulnerabilities. mobiles, an increase in attacks targeting cloud-based services and insecure infrastructure, and greater adoption of botnet and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack techniques, ”says the statistics report from the fourth quarter sector.

Experts say that Covid-19 triggered a cybercrime epidemic with cyberbullying taking center stage.

Most of the victims are women, according to a study published on September 30, 2021 by the Ministry of Gender and Youth Affairs and the Ministry of ICT.

The growth of Internet users by 12.8 percent means that more Kenyans are constantly online, buying and selling, banking, working from home or looking for entertainment, especially on social media.

This has provided a playing field for scammers and thugs who engage in crimes such as sexual harassment, labor violations, and privacy violations, among others.

The presence of large numbers of Kenyan adults on Facebook, Twitter, Signal, Viber, Instagram, Telegram, YouTube, and blogs has made it easy for hackers to stalk them.

Kenya’s National Computer Incident Response Team / Coordination Center, which addresses cyber threats, said it received 529 requests to investigate digital cases in the three months compared to 298 during the previous period, an increase of 77.51 per hundred.

The number of warnings it issued to the public about cyber threats also increased in the three months from 25,189 to 25,969 warnings, an increase of 3.1 percent.

“This increase is attributed to increased phishing, online fraud and online abuse cases arising from increased Internet access,” reads part of the report.

Identity theft ranked first in cases investigated between April and June in 302, up from 162 in January-March or a jump of 86.4 percent.

Online scammers followed, increasing from 63 to 97.

Online abuse increased dramatically by 84 percent, while child abuse cases dropped dramatically to a negative 66 percent.

Scammers steal data, access devices, or send spam to spread computer viruses or malicious software. During this period, the Kenya National Computer Incident Response Team detected 33.7 million malware threat events compared to 34.8 million in October-December 2019.

The report also warns Kenyans against botnet attacks, application hacking, and system vulnerabilities.

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