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SA ranks as 26th most attacked country

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 23 May 2016
The range and volume of attacks has continued to grow, says Check Point's Doros Hadjizenonos.
The range and volume of attacks has continued to grow, says Check Point's Doros Hadjizenonos.

South Africa has climbed up on the list of the most attacked countries, as the threat of mobile malware rises globally.

This is according to the Check Point Threat Index, which ranks SA at number 26 on its global risk threat index for Q1 2016. In the preceding year, SA ranked at 52.

Check Point's threat index is based on threat intelligence drawn from its ThreatCloud World Cyber Threat Map, which tracks how and where cyber attacks are taking place worldwide in real-time.

Developing and African nations are highly represented in the upper rankings of the index, including Namibia and Malawi in second and fourth spots respectively, and Nigeria at 16th position.

"South Africa's rise in ranking shows the range and volume of attacks that organisations face has continued to grow in the first quarter of 2016, highlighting the challenges they face in securing their networks," says Doros Hadjizenonos, country manager at Check Point Software Technologies SA.

"Security professionals cannot rest on their laurels, as we are seeing a lot of movement month to month for many of the countries on the index. It is important to stay vigilant, and work towards advanced preventative and automated threat responses."

Hadjizenonos notes this is especially important as devices proliferate, and organisations blur the lines between work and personal devices.

"Mobile is increasingly the focus of targeted attacks, and unsecured personal devices on an enterprise network can become vulnerabilities for the entire system. Organisations will need to prepare for this in their security strategy, applying the same level of security as required by traditional networks and PCs."

To this end, trend analysis from the Check Point Threat Index in Q1 2016 (January - March 2016) revealed a startling growth in mobile malware which, for the first time, ranks as one of the 10 most prevalent attack types affecting corporate networks and devices globally.

The previously-unknown HummingBad agent - which was only discovered by Check Point in February - was a large contributor to this, ranking as the seventh most common malware detected targeting corporate networks and devices in the month of its discovery, and claiming the sixth top spot in March.

HummingBad targets Android devices specifically, facilitating malicious activity such as installing a key-logger, stealing credentials and bypassing encrypted e-mail containers used by companies, allowing for interception of corporate data, says Check Point.

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