Harare – Cyber attacks are on the rise in Africa with mobile companies, internet service providers and other large businesses suffering server and website outages, says an ICT firm.
The most common form of cyber attack on telecom companies in Africa are Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, according to ICT solutions company Gilat Satcom.
DDoS attacks typically involve hackers flooding a server with thousands of requests that can knock out services.
“Cyber attacks have become a fact of life, with denial of service attacks targeting high-profile businesses and organisations making headline news on a daily basis,” said Dan Zajicek, chief executive officer of Gilat Satcom.
According to Gilat Satcom, “ISPs (internet service providers), cellular companies, banks and IT companies in Africa are all under near-constant attack”. The attacks “make websites and servers unavailable to legitimate users” and block both local and international links.
“Losing connectivity, even for a few hours, is extremely disruptive” and can significantly impact services and affect brands, said Zajicek.
Companies and telecom service providers that would have suffered DDoS attacks are also at risk of secondary attacks and need solutions to counter these attacks, according to other experts.
Gilat Satcom and other solution providers such as Abor Networks - which are focused on curbing African cyber attacks - are upgrading their solutions, bringing in “new and innovative security measures to ensure that … fibre and satellite customers in Africa are fully protected” from DDoS attacks.Although most organisations in Africa have security solutions on their own networks to prevent cyber attacks, these require significant capital expenditure and operating expenditure budgets and may not be able to “secure their international connectivity, said the company.Bryan Hamman, territory manager for sub-Saharan Africa at Arbor Networks, said this week that “DDoS attacks are a growing reality in Africa” although businesses across the continent were finding it difficult to easily determine “the return on investment of purchasing and deploying” preventive systems and solution.“Since Africa has seen an immense increase DDoS attacks during the past couple of months, the continent has become a main focus area for Arbor Networks. As a supplier of superior DDoS defence systems we are able to show that an effective DDoS defence system can safeguard a business operating on the continent against DDoS-related outages,” said Hamman.There has also been a sharp rise in DDoS attacks across the world, with a 2016 report by Neustar saying 82% of organisations suffered more than one DDoS attack in 2015 while about 57% of all attacked companies reported loss of customer data, finances or intellectual property.