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DDOS ATTACKS SURGE AS AFRICA EXPANDS ITS DIGITAL FOOTPRINTDDOS ATTACKS SURGE AS
AFRICA EXPANDS ITS DIGITAL FOOTPRINT

As organizations on the continent expand their use of digital technologies, they
increasingly face many of the same threats that entities in other regions have
had to deal with for years.

Jai Vijayan, Contributing Writer

December 26, 2024

4 Min Read
Source: Golden Dayz via Shutterstock


Rising Internet adoption and digital transformation initiatives are exposing
organizations in Africa to a growing range of cyber threats.

One manifestation of the trend is a steady increase in distributed
denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on organizations in a handful of North African
countries — which also happen to be the ones with the highest Internet
penetration rates in the region.


SURGE IN DDOS ACTIVITY

A recent analysis of threat activity data during the first half of 2024 by
Netscout showed a 30% increase in DDoS attacks in the Middle East and Africa
overall compared with the previous quarter. Countries that experienced the
largest growth in DDoS attacks included Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt.

Morocco, which has a 90% Internet penetration rate, reported 61,000 DDoS attacks
during the first half of 2024, which was the highest number of DDoS attacks in
the region during the period. A plurality of the attacks — 16,461 — targeted
wireless telecom producers in the region; more than 6,000 were directed at wired
telecom companies; and the rest affected organizations across multiple industry
sectors.

Organizations in Egypt, another country in the region with a high Internet
penetration rate, collectively experienced some 45,108 DDoS attacks in the first
half of the year, with wired telecom carriers being the most frequently targeted
entities, followed by wireless carriers and educational institutions. Netscout
found some of the highest bandwidth attacks during the time period in Egypt,
with the biggest one clocking in at a hefty 332.96 Gbit/s.

Related:China's 'Evasive Panda' APT Debuts High-End Cloud Hijacking

The story with Tunisia, which experienced 4,511 DDoS attacks in the first six
months, was similar in terms of victimology: most victims were wired or wireless
telecom providers. However, Netscout found threat actors deploying a larger
number of DDoS attacks against Tunisian organizations than organizations in
other countries. The largest such attack type involved a startling 27 vectors,
including Apple Remote Management Service, Connection-less Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (CLDAP) , Constrained Application Protocol (COAP), and Domain
Name System (DNS) amplification techniques for significantly increasing the
power of an attack.


GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS, "ONLINE-NESS" DRIVE CYBER ACTIVITY

"These attacks can be attributed in part to businesses in countries such as
Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria increasing their online presence
over the past year," says Richard Hummel, director of threat intelligence at
Netscout. "While digital transformation is generally a cause for celebration,
unfortunately, it also means that more devices and services can be disrupted by
attacks."

Related:'SloppyLemming' APT Abuses Cloudflare Service in Pakistan Attacks

A larger attack surface, however, is not the only reason for the increased DDoS
activity in Africa and the Middle East, Hummel says. "Geopolitical tensions in
these regions are also fueling a surge in hacktivist activity as real-world
political disputes spill over into the digital world," he says. "Unfortunately,
hacktivists often target critical infrastructure like government services,
utilities, and banks to cause maximum disruption."

And DDoS attacks are by no means the only manifestation of the new threats that
organizations in Africa are having to contend with as they broaden their digital
footprint.


GROWING CYBER-ESPIONAGE, CYBERCRIME RISKS

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies in a recent report assessed that the
increasing spread of IT, communications, and related technologies in the region
is rapidly amplifying and altering threats against organizations — and raising
national security challenges in the process. The center, which is a US
Department of Defense institution, expects that over the next few years
organizations in Africa will have to contend with a many of the same cyber
threats that entities in other regions of the world have had to contend with for
years.

Related:IDF Has Rebuffed 3B Cyberattacks Since Oct. 7, Colonel Claims

One of them is cyber espionage. "Cyberspace has fundamentally changed the
methods and means through which states gather information on one another and
their citizens," the Africa Center report noted. "Though the most significant
cyberespionage concerns in Africa have centered around China, espionage and
surveillance capabilities are rapidly diffusing across the continent."

Attacks on critical infrastructure and financially motived attacks by organized
crime are other looming concerns. In the center's assessment, Africa's
government networks and networks belonging to the military, banking, and telecom
sectors are all vulnerable to disruptive cyberattacks. Exacerbating the concern
is the relatively high potential for cyber incidents resulting from negligence
and accidents.

Organized crime gangs — the scourge of organizations in the US, Europe, and
other parts of the world, present an emerging threat to organizations in Africa,
the Center has assessed.  "Growing internet penetration rates in Africa has both
led to new kinds of cyber-dependent criminal activities, such as business email
compromise or romance scams, as well transformed the financing and market
dynamics of more traditional organized crime networks." Supply chain attacks are
another major and emerging concern, especially given the high reliance on
foreign suppliers among organizations in Africa.

Agnidipta Sarkar, vice president and CISO advisory at ColorToken, says
organizations in Africa are going to come under growing pressure to implement
defenses against new cyber threats, even as they embark on their digital
transformation journey.

"The ability to continue business operations, despite cyberattacks, will
encourage investments in the region," he predicts. "Effectively reporting
breaches will emerge as a highly sought-after capability for CISOs, especially
[for] those who can."



Read more about:

DR Global Middle East & Africa



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jai Vijayan, Contributing Writer



Jai Vijayan is a seasoned technology reporter with over 20 years of experience
in IT trade journalism. He was most recently a Senior Editor at Computerworld,
where he covered information security and data privacy issues for the
publication. Over the course of his 20-year career at Computerworld, Jai also
covered a variety of other technology topics, including big data, Hadoop,
Internet of Things, e-voting, and data analytics. Prior to Computerworld, Jai
covered technology issues for The Economic Times in Bangalore, India. Jai has a
Master's degree in Statistics and lives in Naperville, Ill.

See more from Jai Vijayan, Contributing Writer
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