Ethiopia sees increase in cyberattacks

ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopia recorded 5,856 cyberattacks in the first nine months of the current Ethiopian Fiscal Year, which started on July 8, an official said on Saturday.

Solomon Soka, deputy director-general at Ethiopia Information Security Agency (INSA), said his agency managed to foil 97.7 percent of those attacks.

The number of cyberattacks targeting Ethiopia has jumped by 400 percent compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year, Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporate quoted Soka as saying.

“Most of the cyber-attacks involved malware attacks on websites, with cyber attacks on infrastructure and online scams being the second and third most frequent forms of cyberattacks,” he said.

“The cyber attacks had varied motives, including geopolitical, political, and economic ones,” Soka said.

Ethiopia is upgrading its largely traditional basic services infrastructure and government bureaucracy, using cyber technology as a key component.

Since assuming office in April 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was previously head of INSA, has engaged in an ambitious drive to introduce cyber technology across all public and private sectors.