The 2021 KnowBe4 African Cyberthreat Report focused on key metrics around cybersecurity awareness and behaviours to gain a holistic view of the continent’s cyber stance and how users perceived the threats.

Key findings:

• The pandemic is still playing a major role in influencing working behaviours and patterns.
• Only 38% of respondents have returned to their offices or are accessing the internet from their office network;
• 55% continue to work from home;
• 32% of respondents were affected by cybercrime while working from home, and one-third (33%) of the attacks were social engineering;
• The number of people concerned about cybercrime has risen to 72%.

Collating insights from 763 respondents across South Africa, Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mauritius and Nigeria, the report highlights some of the gaps that remain in security awareness in spite of the risks posed by the pandemic and the evolution of hybrid working frameworks.

“The pandemic remains a central issue for most users when it comes to how they plan to work and live in the future,” says Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist KnowBe4 Africa. “This year, nearly 55% plan to continue working from home. Respondents are increasingly concerned about the risk of cybercrime at 72%, however, the trend this year has been an increase in overall security confidence, which is not necessarily earned. People think they know more than they do and this is causing issues.”

The challenge is that people are still taking unnecessary risks, in spite of their growing awareness and understanding of cybercrime. Around 10% are very likely to share their personal information and 54% will trust an email from someone they know, even though 36% have fallen for a phishing email and 55% have had a malware infection.

These numbers are up from 2020, and are compounded by the fact that most users believe that they can confidently identify a security incident (44%) but only 46% could accurately identify ransomware – a small drop from 2020 at 47%.

The concern is that more than 30% of users do not know what two-factor authentication is, 40% are not using a secure password – 20% believed that P@$$word! was a strong password – and yet 63% use their mobile devices to do payments or banking. They are putting themselves at risk with poor password hygiene and limited security controls.

“Email remains one of the biggest security threats,” says Collard. “People are still very trusting of emails they have received from people they know (54%, up 2% from 2020), even though those email accounts could have been impersonated or hacked. There is definite need to educate people around the rising social engineering threats around emails, social media, chat apps and the phone (vishing).

The report found that while people are paying more attention to security, they are still falling prey to scams and attacks that they could have avoided. From social engineering to investment scams, the threats are gaining ground. Considering that around 34% have lost money because they fell victim to a scam, and 26% have experienced a social engineering attack over the phone, it is clear that cybercriminals remain determined to use any means necessary to catch people unaware.

“For organisations, it has become critical that they train employees around security best practices and the various methodologies used by the cybercriminal,” concludes Collard. “People need more help in learning about how to stay safe online at home, the office and on the road. Perhaps the worst mistake is that they believe they are security smart and can identify the risks, when they actually cannot. This is putting both them and their company at risk.”

Building a security culture, or in other words, strengthening the human defence layer and making them aware of how to detect and prevent social engineering attacks is a crucial element in organisational cybersecurity posture, especially as many people continue to work from home.

The company is a fast-growing provider of telecoms services and infrastructure in Madagascar, Togo, Tanzania, Senegal, Comoros, Mayotte, Reunion and Uganda.

The provision of new financing will allow AXIAN Telecom to expand its footprint through increasing access to affordable mobile and data services by improving digital access and thus pursuing its strategy of inclusion in the telecom value chain for customers, extending access in rural regions and lower-income demographics.

The expansion of AXIAN Telecom into under-serviced markets should disrupt monopolistic pricing policies and dated product offerings and improve vital digital infrastructure such as fibre optic cables, towers and subsea cables.

Richard Palmer, Head of Corporate Debt, at CDC, which will be renamed British International Investment in April, said: “Affordable mobile and data services is a vital component of any economy and investments in under-developed telecom markets is therefore at the core of CDC’s strategy in Africa. Our commitment to this bond financing supports the mobilisation of private capital from institutions that are less familiar with AXIAN Telecom’s markets.”

Hassanein Hiridjee, Chairman and Founder of AXIAN Telecom, said: “This bond financing will greatly support AXIAN Telecom in reaching millions of people whose prospects can be transformed by access to the services that a mobile phone can provide. This will take us through our next growth phase, and we are grateful for the support that CDC and other DFIs have provided in anchoring this transaction.”

You want to know more about CDC?

CDC will formally become British International Investment plc (BII) on 4 April 2022.

British International Investment is the UK Government’s development finance institution and a key part of the government’s wider plans to mobilise up to £8 billion a year of public and private sector investment in international projects by 2025.

BII, under its new five-year strategy will expand its geographical mandate to include South East Asian countries and the Caribbean.

BII will invest between £1.5 and £2 billion per annum between 2022 and 2026 to support the UK government’s Clean Green Initiative and to create productive, sustainable and inclusive economies in Africa, parts of Asia and the Caribbean.

BII is also a founding member of the 2X challenge which has raised $10 billion to empower women’s economic development.   

The company has investments in over 1,000 businesses in emerging economies and total assets of £6.8 billion.

How about AXIAN Telecom?

AXIAN Telecom is a pan-African telecommunications services provider operating in eight markets through its subsidiaries in Tanzania, Madagascar, Togo, Mauritius and Uganda, and joint ventures in Senegal, Réunion-Mayotte, and Comoros.

It operates across three key business segments, providing mobile network services as well as digital infrastructure and mobile financial services.

AXIAN Telecom serves around 33 million mobile customers via its subsidiaries and is a market disruptor, having expanded from being a single market player (Madagascar) until 2015 to eight markets today, through active acquisitions and heavy network investments.