Mayday! Mayday! I've Been Hacked!

In the murky world of cyberattacks you can lose your business in seconds. Experts say African companies can’t see the big picture and could blindly lose billions.

- Jay Caboz

For years, security experts warned Africa’s slumbering companies of cyberattacks. On May 12, many woke up. On this day cyberattacks struck 150 countries, infecting more than 200,000 computers and holding multi-billion-dollar businesses, like France’s Renault, Britain’s National Health Service, Spain’s Telefónica, the United States’ FedEx and Germany’s Deutsche Bahn, to ransom.

Behind it is WannaCry. This malicious software (malware) encrypts your computer files until a ransom of $300 is paid in the virtual currency, bitcoins. Otherwise, in simple words, it spreads like worms in a bag of rotten apples.

Experts say the reason why this malware squirms so easily into so many companies is that they see cybersecurity as a joke. Many hadn’t updated their security in over two months.

This made it easy for hackers to exploit Microsoft Windows XP operating systems by bypassing security checks. Once into the core, the malware can search for other files to exploit.

“Africa, in fact the whole world, is woefully unprepared. Traditional security measures aren’t keeping up with the emerging threats. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult, economically, to keep throwing money at the problem, when [top level management] doesn’t necessarily understand the difference between defending against attackers versus defending against auditors, all the while, tightening the purse strings and treating security as a grudge purchase or necessary evil,” says Tim Morty, Cyber Security Specialist at Information Security Architects (ISA).