Hackers Targeting Africa with Ransome.

New research from Check Point shows that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting African countries with ransomware attacks.

According to Check Point’s data, five African nations were among the top 10 most-attacked countries in November.

Botswana was the most-attacked country out of 117 at-risk nations, followed by Malawi, Namibia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo all placing in the top 10. In November, South Africa moved up to 31^st on the list from 58th in October, while Kenya dropped to 24th (from 22nd in October) and Nigeria rose to the 108^thspot, from 116th the previous month.

Check Point’s monthly Global Threat Index, which ranks the most prevalent malware families, noted that cybercriminals made increasing use of ransomware attacks using the Locky and Cryptowall viruses. The number of these attacks increased by 10 percent specifically.

The research also showed that the number of active malware families and number of attacks remained close to an all-time high.

Rick Rogers, area manager for East and West Africa at Check Point Software Technologies, explained: “Ransomware attacks are still growing in volume for a simple reason – they work and generate significant revenues for the attackers. Organizations are struggling to effectively counteract the threat posed by this insidious attack form; many simply don’t have the right defenses in place, and may not have educated staff on how to recognize the signs of a potential ransomware attack in incoming emails. This, of course, only makes it even more attractive to criminals.”

“Organizations must use advanced threat prevention measures on networks, endpoints and mobile devices to stop malware at the pre-infection stage, such as Check Point’s SandBlast™ Zero-Day Protection, Threat Extraction, and Mobile Threat Prevention solutions, to ensure that they are adequately secured against the latest threats,” Rogers added.

Ransomware is computer malware that installs covertly on a victim's computer, executes a cryptovirology attack that adversely affects it, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt it or not publish it. Simple ransomware may lock the system in a way which is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse, and display a message requesting payment to unlock it.