infoTECH Feature

November 09, 2015

Nigeria: A New Major Target for Cybercrime

Kaspersky Lab (News - Alert) recently released new information via its Kaspersky Security Network (KSN). The research shows that Internet users in Nigeria need to beef up their cybersecurity practices. Cybercrime is on the rise in the region, and threatens users on several different levels.

The KSN report, drawing information from Kaspersky Lab product users numbers at last report in the millions across 213 countries, showed that the Nigerian mobile landscape was pockmarked with highwaymen and assorted criminals. Malware that spread through local networks was encountered by fully 45.3 percent of KSN participants—almost half of the total—while another 13.8 percent ran into cyberthreats that started up in the wider Internet.

While Nigeria is taking its lumps in this study, the rest of the world is likewise assaulted. Kaspersky Lab detected and blocked a reported 235.4 million malicious attacks worldwide, with 38.2 million unique malicious objects detected. That includes everything from exploits to executable files, and that's up 46.9 percent since just the second quarter of 2015. Just to top it off, 5.68 million notifications about malware specifically targeting bank accounts had been registered as well.

The numbers painted a disastrous picture of online peril. In the third quarter, 10.8 percent more malicious mobile programs were detected, bringing the total to 323,374. The number more than tripled—a 3.1-fold increase—since just the first quarter. Malicious packages increased to over 1.5 million, representing 1.5 times more than the last quarter, reports note. Many mobile threats display advertising to users as a means to make money.

Even bank accounts aren't safe, as nearly 626,000 cases involving malware launched to target online banking emerged. This number is up from last year's third quarter—up 5.7 percent, specifically—but is down significantly from last quarter at a 17.2 percent drop. This threat varied by region, with Austria being the most susceptible with five percent of Kaspersky Lab users hit in such a way, while Singapore had 4.2 percent. Turkey came in third at three percent.

Taking all these numbers together show the world is a dangerous place for online users, and in Nigeria that's increasingly the case. Yet it doesn't slow down most of our operations; we've long since discovered the value of protection. We keep offline backups of sensitive documents lest ransomware step in, watch our bank account balances for signs of trouble and bank with institutions that also do some watching for us. We rotate our passwords and keep our software updated. Some even encrypt data so that those who would take it, even if the job is successful, get little that's actually usable.

The online world can be a frightening place. The KSN numbers demonstrate this plainly. With some basic protections in place, though, many of those dangers are kept at arm's length, a point that hopefully is being delivered to those increasingly at-risk Nigerian users.




Edited by Kyle Piscioniere
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