An International expert has listed Namibia as on the top three countries exposed to malware and cyber-crimes due to lack of communication and coordination policy on dealing with cyber related issues.
Malware is a software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.
Antony Ming an international cyber security expert with vast experience spanning over 25 years in the industry, revealed that African countries in general and Namibia in particular remain the most exposed to malware because of an availability of skills as well as lack of knowledge sharing on cybercrimes.
The laxity in dealing with malware in Namibia and other African countries has potential to expose sensitive systems and institutions to the ugly practice of hacking and stealing of personal data by those in the trade.
Ming told delegates attending the Commonwealth Cyber Security Workshop in Windhoek last week that Namibia is ranked third on the countries that are highly exposed to malware in Africa.
He said 2.9 percent of the malware associated crimes occur in Namibia highly exposing institutions such as banks,
Ming said the Namibia and many African countries are failing to tap on the knowledge exchange as well as government agencies, and parastatals to possible hacking because of a failure at policy level to share information on how best to combat the challenge.
The Asian expert added that while Namibia and other countries have brilliant tertiary institutions with ability to assist in the challenges associated with malware in government and key institutions little or nothing is done to tap on the available knowledge.
“In the case of Namibia, I would say you have the best opportunity to fight this using the Namibia University of Science and Technology. This is a perfect opportunity for government and corporates to tap into the skills produced by NUST to assist in fighting this challenge. You could also work with other institutions like Interpol because they have a database of the new tricks that are being used by cyber criminals and hackers,” he said.
Ming also added that Africa’s situation, which is highly relaxed in terms of dealing with malware, is also exacerbated by the unavailability of a centralised communication and investigation point dealing with the challenge.
“In Namibia, you would find that if a large company is hacked or experiences this challenge they would not say this to the government or institutions and in most cases this is because of fear of criticism. This creates a lack of communication between stakeholders in dealing with malware as a collective,” he said.
