The combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the African continent has increased more than fivefold over the past 20-years. Much of this has been driven by improvement in internet connectivity in supporting a massive growth in the digital economy.
With an estimated 60% of Africans or 700 million people remaining unconnected projections are for massive growth if the “unconnected problem” can be effectively solved. For this to become a reality, African governments need to find solutions to provide incentives for companies to partner with them to make this a reality.
In some instances such as South Africa, this means a change in restrictive regulations and legislation and others it would mean providing opportunities of access to investors. There is an urgent requirement that they should also address infrastructure and skills development as well as one of the most significant threats to effective digital transformation and meaningful accessibility: cybersecurity.
That there has been a rapid growth in the tech industries and particular the Fin-tech industry in Africa is without question but cyber security remains a bruising handicap to the continents development trajectory.
A recent study report by Access Partnership and the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, shows that people and skills remain central to mitigating Africa’s cybersecurity threat and to scaling her cybersecurity defences over the long term.
Cybersecurity as an economic threat, creates significant resource challenges, and the complexity of networks and applications are a significant burden on today’s organizations even in the most advanced economies. Globally, 2023 alone saw over 2,800 publicly disclosed data breaches, involving the theft of over 8.2 billion records, representing only a small portion of what the total breech number is estimated to be.
The overall cybersecurity readiness of over 8,000 businesses across 30 global markets, in Cisco’s Index found that only 3% of respondent organizations fall into the “Mature” (business ready) category.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Cybersecurity Talent Framework the global talent shortage is projected to reach 85 million workers by 2030, causing an estimated $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenue. In the cybersecurity sector alone, there is an urgent need for nearly 4 million professionals to bridge the talent gap.
Africa is confronted with the most significant impact from cyber threats of any continent, and the consequences are immense. Cybercrime slashed Africa’s GDP by an estimated 10% in 2021, amounting to approximately USD 4.12 billion in losses.
In the second quarter of 2023, Africa witnessed its highest average number of cyberattacks per week per organization (2164 attacks reported), a 23% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
Apart from Monetary losses, services such as healthcare, education and company registration processes have affected the lives of many and caused loss of life. Even critical services such as Blood banks have been affected by cyber-attacks. Critical information infrastructure therefore also remains vulnerable to exploitation, posing threats to not only national security but also economic prosperity. According to a 2023 study by Positive Technologies, the most targeted organizations were in the financial sector (18% of attacks), followed by telecommunications companies (13%), government agencies (12%), and organizations in the trade (12%) and industrial (10%) sectors
