E-Business
Five Steps to Evaluating a DDoS Managed Service Provider
The news that the Southern African Department of Labour was recently able to foil a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on one of its external facing servers in early September reminds us that businesses and governments must remain vigilant at all times
While this DDOS attack was unsuccessful, a 2016 attack in Liberia, West Africa took the entire country offline for a week, when a Mirai botnet variant known as Botnet 14 spent seven continuous days on the offensive, flooding the two companies that co-owned the fibre going into country with 600 Gbps flows that overwhelmed its infrastructure. https://threatpost.com/ddos-attacks-get-bigger-smarter-and-more-diverse/134028/
Bryan Hamman, territory manager for sub-Saharan Africa at NETSCOUT Arbor, which specialises in advanced distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection solutions, said, “We know that DDoS attackers will target anyone today, from SMEs that might have valuable data, to banks with sophisticated security systems, all the way to governments at the level of a sovereign nation. By using multiple compromised computer systems to attack a target and cause a denial of service for legitimate users, a flood of incoming information forces the target system to slow down or even crash. And so vigilance remains the eternal watchword.”
In this vein, NETSCOUT Arbor says the case for a managed DDoS protection and mitigation service is well established as partnering with a provider that can oversee your organisation’s security operations takes a critical IT management issue off your plate, boosts your staff resources, and gives you access to specialised DDoS expertise. But not all managed DDoS services are alike.
Hamman clarified, “When you are choosing your managed DDoS service provider, NETSCOUT Arbor outlines the following key areas to look out for: the flexibility to handle customised workflows; customer-focused reporting and intelligence; adequate network size; the experience of the provider’s IT team; and a best-practice hybrid solution.”
Flexibility to handle custom workflows: Your organisation may already have some operational processes and procedures in place for dealing with DDoS threats. A managed service provider should be able to adapt and align to you, rather than requiring you to change your processes. “You may wish to ask questions such as: Under what scenarios do you want the service provider to initiate mitigation action on its own, or seek your authorisation? Can the provider support different actions based on different alert types or event levels?” says Hamman.
Customer-focused reporting and intelligence: A good DDoS provider will deliver reports detailing the latest incidents and the actions taken in response to security events.
However, a DDoS provider that is prepared to take their service to the next level above this will take a more proactive, consultative approach, which leverages global threat intelligence as the basis for recommendations to improve your security posture. A managed service provider should also be able to supply executive-level reporting that enables you to demonstrate ROI and key metrics for the C-suite.
Size of network: NETSCOUT Arbor says DDoS attacks are growing in sheer size and rapidly approaching terabyte territory, due largely to amplification techniques and the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) botnets. The capacity to absorb and disperse the largest known attacks is imperative. Equally important is a distributed infrastructure, with multiple locations that enables mitigation to take place as close to the source of attack as possible. This not only avoids “choke points” – it accelerates time-to-mitigation cycles.
While absolute network size is an important consideration, so too is the amount of capacity dedicated to DDoS mitigation. A dedicated provider is critical to mitigating massive attacks. It should be noted that managed service providers support multiple customers, and there is always the risk that several will be hit at once. It is not enough, therefore, to have capacity levels that are equal to or even twice the size of any potential attack. Rather, the network must be several orders of magnitude bigger than the largest known attacks. Ten terabytes of capacity is quickly becoming the standard that will define the modern, managed DDoS provider.
Experience of team: A good provider will be highly reliant on automation. Over and above this, your provider of choice needs to understand that foiling threat actors takes human intelligence – the ability to recognise and analyse a real attack, understand its origins and quickly determine its objectives. “Therefore,” says Hamman, “your provider of choice should have dedicated research teams with decades of experience studying, analysing and overseeing the successful mitigation of DDoS attack, as well as excellent security expertise from team members with diverse professional backgrounds and complementary skills.”
Best-practice hybrid solution: Increasingly, security experts agree that a hybrid solution, combining on-premise and cloud capabilities, is the best defence against DDoS attacks. The on-premise component can typically capture the vast majority of malicious traffic. If an attack threatens to exhaust the capacity of an on-premise appliance, the cloud capability can automatically activate. Today, on-premise defences can be virtualised. With a fully managed service, costs are offset by a reduction in staffing requirements. And you only pay for as much cloud capacity you consume.
“As we’ve reported previously, data from the NETSCOUT Arbor Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report (WISR) for 2018 showed that South Africa was within the top 10 of countries targeted by DDoS attacks for both the 2018 and 2017 WISR reports. DDoS defences simply cannot be emphasised enough,” concludes Hamman.
E-Business
esentry 2025 Report Shows Healthcare, Financial Services and Telecoms as Staging Grounds for Increased Cyberattacks in Africa
Cyber adversaries targeting African organisations are increasingly shifting away from opportunistic attacks toward deliberate, sector-specific campaigns aimed at the continent’s most critical digital infrastructures, according to the esentry 2025 Annual Report released by esentry, Lagos-based Africa’s leading indigenous Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP).
The report identifies healthcare, financial services, and telecommunications as the primary staging grounds for high-velocity cyberattacks, reflecting a growing focus on sectors that underpin economic stability, public welfare, and digital connectivity across Africa.
The findings are drawn from one of the largest cybersecurity datasets analysed in the region. Over the course of 2025, esentry processed more than 31 billion security events, generating 3.5 million alerts and successfully blocking over 15,000 malicious attempts. This monitoring scale shows that, while traditional financial institutions remain a core target, the threat landscape has expanded to include digital lending platforms, healthcare systems that store sensitive personal data, and telecom operators responsible for national and regional connectivity.
Within the healthcare sector, the report highlights ransomware as the most acute risk, with attackers frequently exploiting exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) services to compromise patient data and disrupt essential medical operations. In financial services, organisations are facing a surge in credential abuse, insider-related threats, and info-stealer malware designed to enable fraud and unauthorised access. Telecommunications providers are increasingly targeted by highly tailored phishing campaigns and attacks on exposed web services, which aim to harvest credentials and compromise customer data.
Commenting on the findings, Gbolabo Awelewa, Chief Business Officer at esentry, said the nature of cyber threats across Africa has evolved significantly. “The threats we are seeing today are deliberate, informed, and carefully tailored to local enterprises. Attackers are exploiting trusted access and moving quietly within networks, which makes early detection critical. Our coordinated cybersecurity model, spanning Defence, Intelligence, Offence, and Security Engineering, allows us to combine scale, speed, and deep contextual insight to detect and neutralise threats before they escalate,” Awelewa said.
A defining trend identified in the report is the shift from overt system exploitation to the abuse of legitimate access. By leveraging compromised credentials and ‘living-off-the-land’ techniques, attackers can blend into routine enterprise operations and significantly delay detection. This approach has compressed the attack lifecycle, enabling adversaries to move from initial access to full operational impact in fewer than 15 days.
To counter this acceleration, the report emphasises the importance of early detection and automated response. esentry says it currently contains low-complexity incidents in under 90 seconds, using a combination of structured threat hunting and centralised telemetry to anticipate and absorb attacker pressure rather than reacting after damage has occurred.
As African organisations continue to digitise, the esentry 2025 Annual Report positions itself as a critical reference point for understanding the continent’s evolving cyber threat environment. The report concludes that protecting Africa’s digital trust will require a shift away from fragmented security tools toward disciplined, coordinated defence frameworks, what esentry describes as a unified Phalanx formation.
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have launched an ambitious $10 billion project to support the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across the continent.
The 10 Billion Initiative intends to accelerate ethical AI adoption and inclusive digital economic growth in Africa.
The initiative follows the Nairobi AI Forum, which took place earlier this month in Kenya and brought together governments, private sector leaders, development partners, and tech innovators to define pathways for impactful AI adoption.
According to the organisations, the strategy is a co-designed collaboration between the Bank Group, UNDP, and commercial partners that aims to raise up to $10 billion by 2035.
The resources will be used to create up to 40 million new jobs across the continent by 2035, through targeted investments that provide the groundwork for AI and accelerate widespread adoption in everything from entrepreneurship and regional data infrastructure to policy frameworks and skill development.
Nicholas Williams, AfDB Group ICT operations division manager, commented: “As a leading multilateral development institution, the bank is leveraging its comparative advantage to ensure Africa is not left behind in the AI era.
“The AI 10 Billion Initiative paves the way for expanded partnerships and sustained investments that will accelerate AI entrepreneurship, strengthen data and infrastructure ecosystems, and support inclusive growth across the continent.”
Kaspersky Threat Research has revealed its analysis of RenEngine, a malware loader that has recently gained public attention. Kaspersky identified RenEngine samples as early as March 2025, with its solutions already protecting users from the threat at that time.
Beyond the cracked games highlighted in recent reports, Kaspersky researchers discovered that attackers created dozens of websites distributing RenEngine through pirated software, including graphics editors like CorelDRAW. This expands the known attack surface beyond the gaming community to anyone seeking unlicensed software.
Kaspersky has recorded incidents in Russia, Brazil, Turkey, Spain and Germany, among other countries. The distribution pattern indicates opportunistic attacks rather than targeted operations.
When Kaspersky first identified RenEngine, the loader was delivering the Lumma stealer. Current attacks distribute ACR Stealer as the final payload, and Vidar stealer has also been observed in some infection chains.
The campaign exploits modified versions of games built on the Ren’Py visual novel engine. When users launch infected installers, a fake loading screen appears while malicious scripts execute in the background. The scripts include sandbox detection capabilities and decrypt a payload that initiates a multi-stage infection chain using HijackLoader, a modular malware delivery tool.
“This threat extends beyond pirated games — attackers are using the same technique to distribute malware through cracked productivity software, which broadens the potential victim pool significantly,” said Pavel Sinenko, lead malware analyst at Kaspersky Threat Research. “Game archive formats vary by engine and title. If an engine doesn’t check the integrity of its resources, attackers can embed malware that executes the moment you click play.”
Kaspersky solutions detect RenEngine as Trojan.Python.Agent.nb and HEUR:Trojan.Python.Agent.gen. HijackLoader is detected as Trojan.Win32.Penguish and Trojan.Win32.DllHijacker.
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