Kenya CyberSpace

In the 21^st century the cyberspace in Kenya has grown massive and by now over 70% of Nairobi residence are connected to the internet on a daily basis. Keeping in mind that the rest of the country is also connected and the numbers keep growing.

With this in mind the government and other agencies are now adopting these technologies and are providing their services online and though mobile platform.

With this in mind we are exposed to a dozen of vulnerabilities and malware attacks from all range of devices including and not limited to phones, tablets, pcs, and servers. Hackers take advantage of these and cause damage to the systems and devices which end up paralyzing operations.

With Kenya being a hub of technology we not only boast we of innovation and paving way for other African nations, but we also become a target for all kinds of cyber attracts ranging from  database corruption, information and identity theft, DOS, man in the middle attacks, malware injections and many more.

In the past years we as a country have suffered and been shamed after facing attacks of different kinds. Some of these include:

•          Kenya Revenue attack  summing up to 4billion loss
•          Post bank website brought down under ramsonware
•          National Environment Management Authority website brought down for hours
•          Communication authority website as well
•          Twitter accounts hacks  of government officials  

With all of these behind our backs we did not just sit down and tweak your fingers hoping that all will be well. Polices and rules that govern the cyber space have been set it’s an ongoing process to clean up the space and bring perpetrators to book. Some of this laws and acts include:

•          African union convention on cyberspace
•          Personal data protection act
•          Cybercrime and computer related crimes bill
•          Cyber security and protection bill 2016
•          National computer incidence response team coordination center
•          International telecommunication union

This are just but a few of the laws and response action that are set-in place to govern and moderate the cyber space.

Well some might ask how all of this affect them and they are not IT experts or students. A lot of crime may happen to people who might not even have a clue to what IT stands for.

For instance let’s have a look at cyber stacking. This is the scenario that victims are followed online and leads to physical tracking whereby the attacker may cause mental harm by sending disturbing messages to its victim and worse case when the attacker carries out physical harm to its victim like rape, killing and so forth.

With all this in mind government agencies and other organizations need to invest on white hats so as to combat such scenarios before they do happen as you cannot deploy a system and assume you will be safe for ever.

If a black hat is able to access a company’s database and either distribute or corrupt the information these means massive loss of revenue and client trust. If Trade secrets or financial records are leaked these may bring a company to its knees.

As a cyber-security expert  I would like to encourage companies to review its IT polices,  server administration polices, firewall rules...…(for more contact me at a fee.) as these would strengthen their infrastructure and decrease the rate attacks