Kaspersky security solutions as reported there were about 4 million malware attacks and 17 million potentially unwarranted applications ( PUA) detections over a period of seven months period in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Communications Communication ( NCC) recently warned Nigerians of the increase in cyberattacks and incidents of fraud across various platforms, especially on social media networks.
The Commission at the time posted a recording online to educate the general public about how fraudsters play tricks on people to defraud them.
It said the video can be found in the Commission’s Twitter Handles (@ngcomcommission or @consumersncc) to listen to the tape and other updates in this regard.
The story is different in South Africa, where there were almost 10 million malware attacks and a staggering 43 million PUA detections, showing the growing desperation of the attacks.
The security company reports that there were 28 million malware attacks in 2020 and 102 million detections of potentially unwanted programs accounted for by the beginning of August 2020.
These numbers show that it’s not only the malware that attacks users but also the “grey zone” programmes that grow in popularity and disturb their experiences, while users might not even know it is there.
Potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) are programmes that are usually not considered to be malicious by themselves.
However, they are generally influencing user experience in a negative way. For instance, hardware fills user devices with ads; aggressive monetising software propagates unrequested paid offers; downloaders may download even more various applications on the device, sometimes malicious ones.
They also eventually reach more users: for instance, while in South Africa, the malware would attack 415,000 users in 7-months of 2020, the figure for PUA would be 736,000.
“The reason why ‘grey zone’ software is growing in popularity is that it is harder to notice at first and that if the programme is detected, its creators won’t be considered to be cybercriminals. The problem with them is that users are not always aware they consented to the installation of such programmes on their device and that in some cases, such programmes are exploited or used as a disguise for malware downloads,” said Denis Parinov, a security researcher at Kaspersky.
By taking a closer look at PUA, it becomes apparent that they are not only more widespread but also more potent than traditional malware.
Evaluating results over the same 7-month period in Nigeria, there were 3.8 million malware attacks and 16.8 million PUA detections – which is four times as much.
Kenyan and South African threat landscapes have been more intense. In South Africa, there were almost 10 million malware attacks and a staggering 43 million PUA detections.
Kenyan users faced even more malware attacks – around 14 million, and 41 million PUA appearances, Kaspersky said.
