Data breaches fall by 0.02% in Africa as globe sees 4.4b infractions

Data breaches in Nigeria and other part of Africa fell by 0.02 per cent in 2018 as the world recorded 4.4 billion infractions. The Asian continent ranked top ahead of other regions.
In the report titled: “World’s Biggest Data Breaches and Hacks”, 4,433,164,446 data records were globally compromised in 2018, with the Asians becoming the most vulnerable. The continent had 50.01 per cent breaches on 2,217, 183,889 data. North America at 49.44 per cent saw 2,159,743,546 breaches; Europe had 0.39 per cent with 17,249,000 records; South America at 0.14 per cent with 6,000,000; and the African continent at 0.02 per cent with 988,011 records data lost.

From the report, the sector with the highest data breaches occurred in the government at 47.4 per cent from 2,101,500,000 compromised data with sample cases like Aadhar, SingHealth; the technology sector was next with 20.1 per cent from 891,900,000 which included cases like Facebook, Twitter; the WebSpace was next with 17.8 per cent from 786,900,000 cases, which included Quora, SheIN.

The retail sector was also impacted by 13.4 per cent with 593, 400,000, which included Amazon, Marriott Hotels. Other affected sector included healthcare, telecom and transport sectors at 1.3 per cent at 3 100 000; 44 000 000; 12 000 000 respectively, which included CMS, T-Mobile, British Airways, Arik Airlines.

According to the report, two factors were considered in the analysis, cause of compromise, which was classified into: Oops, Hacked cases, and Poor Security. The second factor was sensitivity of compromised data, classified into five categories: online information, personal details, financial information, health records and full details.

Speaking on the report, cyber security consultant, Eyitemi Egbujule, said firms must consider three major factors in securing their cyber space: technology, the processes in running the business and the people.

According to him, security breaches mainly occur through technology, “technology evolves and needs to be updated. Thus, what is implemented today and guaranteed secure today may not be tomorrow. This is the reason individuals and corporate bodies must have regular security assessment to ensure their technology is in line with the current security trend.”

Speaking on processes, he noted that as a business scales and their technology requirement grows, their security must not lag behind, “as businesses evolve, the processes and operations of managing the business also follows suit.

Therefore, as the scopes of operations are put in place to reflect the entire structures on the whole end to improve the continuity and growth of the business, the required structures have to be put in place to avoid loopholes that can be exploited.”

For Egbujule, the human factor is a dynamic one that can either be the strongest or weakest link, which can greatly affect security, “to ensure the security of a company, a product or control, security awareness has to be taught to the staff and the users of the product. Awareness on opening mails from unknown sources, divulging personal or classified information and other precautionary measures should be taught.”

Source:https://samueljackson12.blogspot.com/2019/01/data-breaches-fall-by-002-in-africa-as.html