While over 40 percent of Kenya still lives below poverty, parts of the African nation are rising fast to the benefits and challenges of technology. The Telecommunications Service Providers Association of Kenya (TESPOK) -- a nonprofit group tracking and analyzing Internet and Telecom services in Kenya -- just released their quarterly security report indicating that VoIP security and the basic computer learning curve are big players when it comes to security problems.
In many ways there’s a revolution of connectivity taking place. Overall Internet penetration in 2013 is at 41 percent in Kenya with an annual growth rate of 75 percent. There are 500 million mobile phone subscriptions and that number is expected to increase 50 percent in five years. Seventy-seven percent of Internet enabled mobile phone users shop online. (via 2013 Tech Section Trends Online) They’re even building a “Silicon Savannah” called Konza which will take twenty years and bring more than 200,000 jobs.
But for all this forward-thinking, security is still a huge problem for the African nation and more than a third of users cite it as the largest drawback to buying online.
Hackers seem to be learning faster than users who may not understand the important role of patches and updates in security. “Cyber security awareness amongst the general public is rather low. We would like to sensitize the end users on what precautions to take when they go online,” said Tom Omariba, TESPOK Chairman.
But for businesses and enterprise users the biggest security threat is rampant illegal use of VoIP. Traditionally, security breaches in VoIP systems take the form of phreaking (stealing service from a provider), denial of service attacks, spamming and phishing, or posing as a business to get users to share personal or sensitive information.
Kenya’s government is ambitious when it comes to tech and has made it a big part of their “Vision 2030” plan to grow the nation’s GDP in coming decades. Just one segment of the plan would put a laptop in the hands of every child for the 2014 school year. If they can raise one digital generation with the basic tenets of software security they will have bridged a large gap in just a few years. In the meantime let’s hope they (and we) learn to install those updates.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson