[Africa Tech Review] Duncan Mochama: DDoS attacks up by 300% in Africa since 2019
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have been on the rise in Africa the last few years. The latest figures from SEACOM, a leading pan-African ICT service provider released this week revealed that these attacks increased by 300% in 2021, compared to the same period in 2019. At the same time, Nokia 2021 Threat Intelligence Report released this week shows that banking malware threats are sharply increasing as cybercriminals target the rising popularity of mobile banking on smartphones, with plots aimed at stealing personal banking credentials and credit card information.
Cybersecurity firm Sophos also published an article detailing how ransomware attackers are implementing a wide range of ruthless pressure tactics to persuade victims to pay the ransom.
We also covered news from a number of African telcos this week. Paratus and MTN signed a national roaming agreement in Namibia, the first of its kind in this Southern African nation. Vodacom Group announced that it has agreed on terms with Vodafone to acquire its controlling stake in Vodafone Egypt, one of Africa’s premier telecom operators. African telecommunications group, Econet, announced the launch of Cassava Technologies, which brings together Econet’s digital services and digital infrastructure product segments. SEACOM announced the appointment of Tejpal Bedi to the role of Managing Director and Regional Head of Sales for the ENEA region, effective from 1 November 2021. In South Africa, STL, a leading integrator of digital networks announced a strategic partnership with Limpopo Connexion, a subsidiary of Limpopo Economic Development Agency that provides world-class broadband services to government bodies and enterprises in South Africa.
Vodacom Group announced that it has agreed to terms to acquire a strategic stake in Community Investment Ventures Holdings’ (CIVH) fibre assets that will transform its South African fibre business and accelerate the purpose-led Group’s ambition of connecting people for a better future while Smart Africa and Afriwave partnered tp advance connectivity in the continent. To support universal and affordable broadband access in Africa, IFC partnered with Liquid Intelligent Technologies to expand data centre capacity and the rollout of fibre-optic cable on the continent.
In Kenya, KEPSA this week announced a partnership with Absa Bank Kenya to empower one million young Kenyans with digital job opportunities through their respective youth programs, Ajira Digital and Ready-to-Work. Meta announced the launch of a new WhatsApp chatbot to help SMEs in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, and other English speaking countries learn how to grow their businesses online.
To shed light on the impact the global health crisis – and ongoing recovery – has had on small businesses globally, Mastercard this week released Recovery Insights: Small Business Reset. The digital payments company also partnered with Paymob, Egypt’s pioneer in digital payments, to launch the Tap-on-Phone digital payment acceptance service in Egypt, the first-of-its-kind in the country.
Trade enabler, DP World, announced the launch of its global wholesale e-Commerce platform DUBUY.com in Kenya this week, bringing a new digital trade corridor for Kenya and the East African region for efficient, reliable B2B e-Commerce for businesses of all sizes.
African startups were also in the news this week. South Africa fleet-tech startup KeyTec partnered with LocoNav to capture the emerging and high-growth video telematics market throughout Africa. Orange announced the winners of the 11th edition of the Orange Prize for social entrepreneurs in Africa. AURA, South Africa's leading security and medical response startup appointed David Myers as its Chief Operations Officer while Kenyan mental startup Shamiri Institute raised $1 million in funding from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to tackle the scourge of mental health in Kenya and the rest of the African continent.
Other top highlights of the week include MainOne, West Africa’s leading connectivity and data centre solutions provider, upgrading Ivorian ISP, VIPNET’s capacity from 155Mbps to 1Gbps and Diversified global media, marketing and technology company Entravision acquiring 365 Digital, a digital advertising solutions company headquartered in South Africa.
Duncan Mochama is the solutions consultant at Incentro Africa.