Africa to Face More Cyber Attacks in 2010

According to security experts at Kaspersky, the East African countries, which are experiencing more Internet activity, are poised for escalated cyber attacks this year (2010).

The experts believe that computer worms along with other malware programs will proliferate throughout the countries' cyber space via Internet money making scams. This will be possible because the countries have linked with twin fiber optic chains under the sea.

Garry Kondakov, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab, said that African users weren't the preferred targets for cyber criminals since those users had slow broadband links. But the situation was poised for a change, as reported by Itnewsafrica on January 25, 2010.

The change apparently calls for IT managers to keep themselves ready for the possible serious circumstances, which may occur, if malicious attacks take place.

According to the Kaspersky experts, there will be a rise in grey campaigns in the botnet services market. According to them, these campaigns will be employing "partner programs" based on which botnet herders will be profiting from their operations despite avoiding an overt crime.

Furthermore, cyber criminals' change of tricks in 2010 will be prominent. They will move from attacks via malicious or infected applications and websites to ones based on P2P file-sharing networks. As broadband connectivity improves across the East African region, there will be more-and-more cyber criminals carrying out such online attacks.

Apart from these possible means of infection, Kaspersky understands that malicious software will comparatively increase in sophistication during 2010. Besides, several antivirus applications wouldn't be fast enough to clean contaminated PCs. This will be because of sophisticated methods of file infection along with use of rootkit technologies. As Internet connectivity becomes better in speed and use, the total number of PCs will undoubtedly rise.

Hence, security professionals suggest computer users to adopt necessary actions to lessen these rising online threats. They recommend that people in the region as well as others should expend to install trusted and proven security applications obtained from trustworthy vendors. Further, they advocate that netizens should avoid clicking on shortened and unidentified URLs, which appear dubious, download malevolent stuff, or leave users' computers compromised.

Related article: Africa Challenged with New Internet Security Problems

» SPAMfighter News - 2/6/2010