In the second quarter of 2021, a total of 6.5 million unique malicious URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) were said to have threatened internet users in Nigeria and Kenya. This is according to a report by Kaspersky, a Russian cybersecurity firm.
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Also, during the second quarter of the year a total of 14.9 million web threats were detected and blocked by Kaspersky in Nigeria and Kenya. Business Insider Africa understands that the malwares specifically targeted Nigerians and Kenyans working from home, in a phishing bid to steal their banking details.
“The IT threat landscape is evolving as more sophisticated technology becomes available. The increase of malicious URLs in Kenya and Nigeria also indicates how phishing and related malware have grown in popularity by threat actors in these regions, who are targeting people working outside of the relative safety of the office network,” explained Bethwel Opil, Kaspersky's enterprise sales manager in Africa.
Kaspersky claimed that it blocked a total of 1.7 billion web threats across the world during the same period, marking an 87% increase when compared to the figure during the comparable period in 2020. In the same vein, as many as 675 million unique malicious URLs wee also identified and blocked around the world during the same period last year.
Note that internet users face varying degrees of cybersecurity threats daily, including phishing, computer viruses and even offline data theft which are then used to inflict harm online. Also, browser-based infections enable cybercriminals the opportunity to access devices that do not have any antivirus solutions installed.
“Of course, there are a variety of web security threats in the market. They typically include human and technical manipulation to attack. Some of the most common web threats include social engineering, malicious code, exploits, and cybercrime,” Opil further explained..
In order to protect against these cybersecurity threats, internet users are encouraged to install antivirus solutions on their systems, create backups of their files and enable multiple login authentication. They should also occasionally scan their devices in order to detect infections on time.
SOURCE : Business
