Arab Countries Facing The Highest Number Of Cyber Attacks
SOURCE: FORBES MIDDLE EAST
BY: NERMEEN ABBAS
Damages from cyberattacks could cost the world around $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to the American research firm Cybersecurity Ventures.
Kaspersky cyberthreat real-time map, an interactive visualization of data streams, reveals the countries that face the highest threat of cyber attacks. The data comes from Kaspersky Security Network, where threats are detected with various diagnostic tools such as On-Access Scan, On-Demand Scan, Web and Mail Anti-Viruses, as well as the Vulnerability Scan and Intrusion Detection System.
Forbes Middle East checked the Kaspersky cyberthreat real-time map as of Thursday, 22nd March to identify the most cyberattacked countries in the Arab world.
Ranked at the 17th place worldwide, Saudi Arabia faces the highest number of cyber attacks in the Arab region, while the U.A.E came second, ranked at the 18th spot globally. This was followed by Algeria at the 24th place as of March 22nd, 2018.
The number of threat alerts faced by Saudi Arabia rose by 7% quarter-on-quarter during the last quarter of 2017. Most of these threats targeted government entities, energy and telecommunication sectors, according to the Saudi National Cyber Security Center. Meanwhile 615 cyberattacks in the U.A.E were foiled by the Telecommunications Regulations Authority (TRA) during the first 10 months of 2017, according to statistics revealed by TRA.
“U.A.E.’s 2017 Internet Security Threat Profile improved globally with the country dropping from its world rank of 51 in 2016 to 52 in 2017. However, in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), UAE jumped from its 10th regional rank to 9th this year” a report from Symantec said.
The California-headquartered cybersecurity firm added that in the MEA region, the U.A.E. had the third highest share of cryptominers, while Saudi Arabia ranked first. The U.A.E. was the sixth most targeted country in MEA for ransomware attacks while Saudi Arabia experienced the highest number of ransomware detections in the region.
Algeria, the third in Kaspersky cyberthreat real-time map after U.A.E and Saudi Arabia, always featured high in terms of cyber threats. Last year, Kaspersky Lab put the country in the high-risk category, saying that it faces the greatest risk of online infection worldwide with 44.06% of users attacked.
Ranked 32nd worldwide according to Kaspersky cyberthreat real-time map, Egypt took the fourth place among the most cyberattacked Arab countries.
Egypt is making a progress in facing cybercrimes, that pushed it to be 14th worldwide in ITU Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI)17 and second at the level of both Arab and African regions; The (GCI) is a survey that measures the commitment of Member States to cybersecurity in order to raise awareness.
Morocco is the fifth Arab country where cyberattacks are widespread and it is ranked 41st worldwide. Kaspersky Lap indicated that 53.5% of Moroccan users faced high risk of local infection in 2017.
Cybercrime is one of the most reported economic crime affecting organizations. In 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attacked thousands of companies across 150 countries causing damages up to billions of dollars.
According to a survey conducted by PwC, 77% of over 50 CEOs in the region are more concerned with cyber threats this year in comparison to 66% last year. Around 62% of regional CEOs said they would be investing more heavily in customer cyber protections measures, compared to just 50% globally.
