E-Business

Nigeria, Ghana Africa’s Digital Hubs Hardest Hit by Cyber Attacks – Report

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Nigeria, a major digital hub in Africa, has one of the highest volume of cyberattacks in West Africa, coming in at 2,721 for the first half of 2024.

Attacks on the computer-related services field were prevalent, as in Ghana, with 867 incidents, but local beauty salons were second on the list for Nigeria, enduring 206 incidents, followed by data processing hosting companies at 116.

“The growing complexity of distributed denial of service (DDoS) threats seen worldwide, including a notable increase in both attack frequency and sophistication, is clearly reflected in Nigeria. The country experienced more complex attacks than others within the region, with 23 different attacks vendors seen in one single attack, from TCP and CLDAP (Connection-less Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) attacks to Domain Name System (DNS) amplification and many more,” Bryan Hamman, regional director for Africa at NETSCOUT, adding that the country stood out third on the list.

Ghana, however, led the region in both the frequency and diversity of cyber threats for the first half of 2024, facing a high volume of DDoS attacks directed at industries including computer services and telecommunications.

In fact, according to NETSCOUT’s 1H2024 DDoS Threat Intelligence Report (TIR), the country was subjected to a total of 4,753 attacks over the six months, of which 2,759 were aimed at computer-related services businesses. Wireless telecommunications carriers (except satellite) received the second highest number of attacks, at 110, with full-service restaurants also noted as another vertical industry under fire. Furthermore, Ghana experienced by far the highest volume attack in West Africa, with the maximum bandwidth of its largest DDoS attack measuring 314.25 Mbps.

Known for an economic resilience that is driven by agriculture and mining, Guinea surprisingly took second spot in the NETSCOUT results for West Africa in terms of attack frequency, with 2,918 incidents listed. Wireless telecommunications carriers bore the brunt of these strikes, which were mostly TCP-type attacks.

Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia both faced similar attack frequencies, with 1,598 and 1,515 incidents noted respectively. The two countries also experienced similarities in the types of attacks vectors used – mostly TCP-related – as well as the sector that was hardest hit, which was wireless telecommunications for both.

Again, wireless telecommunications carriers were identified as the prime targets for threat actors in Benin (196 incidents), Senegal (107), Mali (32) and Cameroon (16).

“This is in line with NETSCOUT’s global Threat Intelligence Report figures, which measured attacks on the sector at 834,471 for the first part of 2024, a substantial 34 per cent increase on the figures seen for 2H 2023, which was calculated at 622,295. We believe this points to an objective by cybercriminals to disrupt critical communication infrastructure,” Hamman said.

 

 

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