A 2019 KnowBe4 African Report has shown that Kenyans and South Africans are most concerned about the risk of cybercrime compared to Nigeria and other African countries
According to the report, 53 per cent of Africans surveyed think that trusting emails from people they know is good enough; 28 per cent have fallen for a phishing email and 50 per cent have had a malware infection.
The report also found that 64 per cent don’t know what ransomware is and yet believe they can easily identify a security threat while 52 per cent don’t know what multi-factor authentication is.
The African Report across South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritius and Botswana has found that people living on the continent are not prepared for the cyber threat. Sixty-five per cent of respondents across all eight countries are concerned about cybercrime.
Of all the countries surveyed, Kenyans (75 per cent) and South Africans (74 per cent) were the most concerned about the risk of cybercrime and yet respondents were comfortable giving away their personal information as long as they understood what it was being used for (Kenyans 26.59 per cent and South Africans 57 per cent).
The report said that this is a worrying trend – many phishing scams will use any means necessary to tease out valuable nuggets of personal information and phone calls or emails from so-called ‘trusted sources’ are among the most common methods used.
The problem is that most users are not aware of how cybercriminals operate and the tools that they use. More than half of respondents across all eight countries felt very confident that they would recognise a security incident or issue if they saw one, but a significant percentage have had a PC infection, and more than a quarter had fallen for a scam. In South Africa, 50 per cent of respondents had their PCs infected, while in Kenya, Ghana and Egypt, this number rose to 67 per cent.
The KnowBe4 survey found that even though nearly half of respondents across all eight countries felt that their organisations had trained them adequately, a quarter of them didn’t know what ransomware was.
More than 50 per cent of respondents are not aware of what multi-factor authentication is or the benefit thereof. Using stolen credentials was the third most common attack vector used in successful breaches and applying multi-factor authentication, which is combining your password with something that you own, such as a One-Time-Password app on your phone, which reduces this risk significantly.
Phishing is still the number one attack vector of successful data breaches, as per the report, email security is one of the biggest threats facing the average user, both at work and at home.
Email is one of the most common communication methods, more than 70 per cent of those surveyed use email to collaborate with friends and colleagues. Most people don’t realise what a risky email looks like or how their actions can result in their systems becoming infected.
