Afrigather This text was submitted to TechCabal by Phil Westgarth, Community Worldwide, Group Chief Data Safety Officer; and Ryan Meder, DPO Group, Chief Data Officer.
Africa’s digital transformation has include a darkish facet: the rise of digital fraud. Cybersecurity is a serious concern throughout the continent. A current report by Global Cybersecurity Index confirmed that solely 29 of 54 African nations assessed have launched cybersecurity laws. An IDC report titled ‘The Impression of Cyber Extortion on Africa’ acknowledged that Africa is shedding $4 billion yearly to cybercrime, however that is slowly altering as nations like Kenya and Zambia implement new cybersecurity legal guidelines.
In accordance with a report by Visa, three-quarters of fraud and knowledge breach circumstances investigated by Visa’s international threat staff concerned ecommerce retailers.
In a technology-driven sector the place devices, programs, and software program are the order of the day, it’s essential that ecommerce retailers have a prevention and security plan in place to safeguard in opposition to cyber-attacks. Each companies and clients in Africa have embraced digital knowledge storage, however by counting on cloud companies to retailer their user-sensitive data, they change into susceptible to digital fraud.
The price of doing nothing
In Africa, assaults associated to knowledge loss threats elevated considerably this yr, rising by 234% in Q2 2022, in comparison with the earlier quarter, based on Kaspersky, an anti-virus software program firm. These assaults included phishing, scams, and social engineering, the place customers are lured to a website and tricked into coming into private data.
Digital cost corporations that don’t create the fitting infrastructure and insurance policies to guard their knowledge pays a excessive worth. Cybercrime can damage an organization past its financials— knowledge loss and the theft of mental property and monetary and private data can all harm a model’s popularity, resulting in lack of clients and endless authorized battles. Strict insurance policies and procedures to deal with buyer data are a necessity.
The key worldwide credit score and debit card manufacturers (corresponding to Visa and Mastercard) mandate the implementation of Cybersecurity controls for processors of their playing cards by way of the Cost Card Trade Information Safety Requirements (PCI-DSS). DPO and Community Worldwide have maintained compliance with these requirements for a few years and are externally audited yearly to keep up this accreditation. Different worldwide requirements corresponding to ISO 27001 and ISAE 3402 (SOC2) are additionally sought by the rising fintech corporations that search to compete with the extra established safe cost corporations.
As we speak, shoppers are altering the way in which they store and are more and more utilizing ecommerce and digital options. They’re conscious of their private on-line safety, and that is very true once they make cross-border purchases. Some potential ecommerce clients nonetheless keep away from purchasing on-line for worry of being uncovered to fraud, thus delaying ecommerce progress in Africa. Digital funds and ecommerce service suppliers should set up their very own greatest practices for managing knowledge and constructing shopper belief, by guaranteeing data is protected each step of the way in which throughout transactions. They have to additionally break down this data to clients within the easiest language attainable.
The Covid-19 impact
The Covid-19 pandemic created new challenges for companies and most shifted to distant work or hybrid working fashions. In accordance with a report by Swiss Information, the pandemic and the ensuing shift to distant and hybrid working had been a serious explanation for the rise in cybersecurity assaults. Folks working at house don’t take pleasure in the identical stage of web safety measures that they profit from on the workplace, the report discovered.
Digital cost corporations have to frequently prepare their staff on the way to defend buyer data and adjust to firm insurance policies and procedures. They have to additionally keep updated with cost safety requirements and international compliance and may monitor programs frequently. DPO, for instance, makes use of superior fraud and threat programs, which monitor transactions across the clock and sophisticated guidelines engines to guard companies in opposition to fraud. IT departments ought to help staff working from house with digital programs that defend their work devices and frequently replace safety software program and firewalls.
Yr after yr the continent data elevated progress in digital funds infrastructure, which suggests thrilling alternatives for Africa’s financial acceleration. Nevertheless, every new growth presents one other alternative for cyber predators to illegally entry private or firm knowledge. Now greater than ever, digital cost corporations want to speculate closely in knowledge safety to safeguard themselves and their clients in opposition to crime.
