The Covid-19 crisis has seen a rapid rise in the use of technology as many companies implement work-from-home and “bring your own device” policies. This has led to a potential increase in cyberattacks such as phishing and social engineering, with the financial services industry seen as the most vulnerable sector because of the prospective immediate monetary gain.

Dimension Data has launched its focused Intelligent Security business to help protect clients from global cyberthreats and, in conjunction with its global NTT Group security team, has invested in additional platforms and skills to support this aim.

The company’s Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) platform, which employs an ecosystem of integrated technologies, is seen as a key aspect of its offering. It has also invested in research to develop further solutions that target pricing, scaling and the security needs of local businesses.

Dimension Data has extended this service to East Africa, prompted by a 55% spike in the number of recent insider-related cybersecurity breaches, linked to a lack of active monitoring as a result of information technology personnel working remotely, in line with Covid-19 policies.

The first half of 2020 saw an increase in reconnaissance attacks accounting for 40% of all observations in the Middle East and Africa region according to the latest NTT Gobal Threat Intelligence report, which also notes that a rise in Web application attacks on content management systems such as Joomla! and WordPress accounted for over 20% of observed attacks. Service-specific attacks increased by 40%, targeting known weaknesses that have remained largely unaddressed by various organisations.

According to the Communication Authority, Kenya, Annual Report 2018/19, malware attacks were the most prevalent threats accounting for about 78% of all cyberthreat detections by the National Computer Incident Response Team Co-ordination Centre.

Dimension Data explains that current attacks within East Africa are linked to hackers employing smarter methods to distribute their server networks and occasionally purchasing command and control systems in other countries, with traffic being routed through myriad systems making its origin hard to trace.

The company asserts that organisations will need to increase automation through intelligence analysis and orchestration tools, especially in terms of incident response, and that its Intelligent Security platform brings together all the capabilities and security offerings previously managed by Dimension Data’s subsidiary brands into one business.