It is no secret that the Kenyan population continues to be extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks especially as smartphone penetration keeps growing in every corner of the country every year. It seems like the situation is getting worse as a new report now indicates that cyberattacks targeting mobile applications have surged more than four times in the three months leading to September 2024 compared to a similar period last year.
The latest statistics released by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) now show that Kenyans experienced 117,661 attacks during this period reflecting a 333% surge from 27,147 in Q3 2023. This represented an 18.50% increase from the previous period, April to June 2024.
According to the CA’s Computer Incident Response Team—Coordination Centre (CIRT/CC), 6,599 early warnings were issued over the period, a drop from the 7,193 advisories issued in Q3 2023. This indicates the increased sophistication of the threats.
Millions of Kenyans who depend on their Android devices daily have now been exposed to cyberattacks, a situation that is concerning as it could lead to financial losses, identity theft, and unauthorised access to sensitive information.
“During the period, the perpetrators of mobile application attacks mainly sought to steal sensitive user data such as personally identifiable information, login credentials and financial details for malicious purposes,” CA stated in its new report.
The report goes further to state that devices like Android smart television sets, set top boxes and Google TVs were some of the most targeted alongside Android smartphones. This is exploited mostly through malware and viruses embedded in third-party apps that users install on their devices enabling hackers to access them.
This surge has been linked with the lack of knowledge by Kenyan users that attackers easily take advantage of by marketing third-party apps that are not available of the official app stores.
