CA: Cyber threat cases jump at an alarming rate

Communications Authority of Kenya headquarters in Nairobi (PHOTO: FILE)

NAIROBI, KENYA: Cases of cyber threat in Kenya has jumped at an alarming rate of 60 per cent to 56,206,097 in the second quarter of 2020/21 year from 35,173,937 previous period.

A new industry report by the Communications Authority of Kenya links the increase to systematic resumption to normalcy amongst sectors and services that were previously dormant due to the restrictions surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Common types of threats detected during the period include web application attacks, Malware, DDOS/Botnet and system vulnerabilities.

In response to the threat events detected, the National KE-CIRT/CC issued 21,513 advisories, which was a 1.0 per cent decrease compared to the 21,728 advisories issued in the previous period. 

It received 224 investigation related requests as compared to 354 requests in the previous period, which represents a decline of 36.7 per cent.

The decline is attributed to the National KE-CIRT/CC concerted cyber awareness efforts to counter these harmful online practices.

In the investigation category, there was a decrease in impersonation, online fraud, online abuse (incitement and Cyberbullying) and child abuse cases, reported to the National KE-CIRT/CC. Child abuse cases decrease was mainly attributed to collaborative efforts with the Directorate of Criminal Investigation’s Child Protection Unit (DCI CPU).

The sector statistics report for the second quarter of the 2020/21 Financial Year provides an overview of the performance and trends of the ICT sector for the period October 1 to December 31 last year, on mobile telephony services, fixed telephony services, internet services, and frequency spectrum management

Mobile money

The number of active registered mobile money subscriptions stood at 32.5 million, whereas the number of active mobile money agents stood at 264,390 during the period under review. The value of transfers across pay bill and till numbers grew significantly.

Mobile Subscription

The number of active mobile subscriptions as of December 31 2020 stood at 61.4 million, representing an increase of 2.6 per cent from the preceding quarter. Subsequently, mobile (Sim) penetration grew by 3.3 percentage points to stand at 129.1 per cent during the period under review. During the review period, the data for Jamii Telecommunications Limited is included in the cellular mobile services sub-section whose main services is delivering mobile data through 4G but also includes Voice over LTE.

Mobile Traffic and Usage Patterns

During the quarter under review, the total local mobile voice traffic grew by 8.2 per cent to 19.7 billion minutes.

The volume of on-net mobile voice traffic rose by 8.6 per cent to post 17.3 billion minutes, from 16.0 billion minutes registered in the last quarter. On a similar trend, off-net mobile voice traffic increased to 2.3 billion from 2.2 billion minutes recorded during the previous quarter. On the contrary, mobile to fixed network voice traffic declined by 3.7 per cent to 16.9 million minutes, from 17.6 million minutes recorded in the last quarter.