Kaspersky Lab forecast urges cybersecurity vigilance in Nigeria

Researchers from Kaspersky Lab, a global security company ranked as one of the world's top four security solutions providers for end-point users, recently predicted the top security risks for 2016.

Internet users in Nigeria were cautioned to take extra care when putting personal information into cyberspace.

“Nigeria ranks No. 8 for Internet users by country; it is the highest number among all African countries," Dirk Kollberg, senior security researcher for the global research and analysis team at Kaspersky Lab, said. "It is obvious that in this region, we will see many attacks on users aimed at getting their financial and personal data on mobiles and PCs. Ransomware will also likely rise in this region in 2016. Also, there are more and more companies choosing to keep their data in the cloud due to the reduced costs and the grown Internet speed, so the opportunity for malware writers to steal company data has become a much bigger risk than a few years ago."

Other predictions included a change in how Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are developed and implemented. The focus of these threats is expected to change from persistence to memory-resident or fileless malware - making them harder to detect.
Kaspersky experts also expect more people to begin using APTs in an effort to profit financially from launching online attacks. Consumer threats also will see a surge, appearing more often on OS X devices, the report said.

The forecast said cybercriminals looking for new ways to profit will be going after payment systems, such as ApplePay and AndroidPay, and, on a larger level, the world's stock exchanges.

The study, “2016 Prediction: It’s the End of the World for APTs,” can be viewed in its entirety online at www.securelist.com/files/2015/11/KSB_2016_Predictions_FINAL.pdf.