{"id":18866,"date":"2023-05-15T07:35:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T07:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barazalab.com\/?p=18866"},"modified":"2023-11-27T12:34:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T12:34:56","slug":"dont-click-that-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tuwele.com\/baraza_update\/dont-click-that-link\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Click That Link"},"content":{"rendered":"

BARUA YA BARAZA: Don\u2019t Click That Link <\/strong><\/p>\n

From the Curator\u2019s Desk
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Greetings, friends:<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s newsletter is continuing the tradition of inviting members of our community to write From The Curator\u2019s Desk, and for this edition, I\u2019m happy to hand it over to my colleague Benter Dongo, who\u2019s Executive Assistant & HR at Baraza Media Lab.<\/em><\/p>\n

Please send your guest writing pitches for this section to chris@barazalab.com\u00a0 if you\u2019re interested in being our guest curator on the newsletter, and you have something of interest to share to our community \u2014 a trend you\u2019ve noticed or something you\u2019d like us to think about. <\/em><\/p>\n

~ Christine<\/em><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, the big news of the day in Kenya was the data breach\/ hack on Naivas supermarket, which, to its credit, the retailer\u2019s management acknowledged with utmost humility and honour, in my honest opinion. But security breaches, hacks and scams have become the order of the day in the digital space and according to some smart people<\/a>, we are in for a rough ride as technology evolves. Better buckle up folks!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fact that the digital space has paved the way for both constructive and destructive innovations alike. Today, cybercrime has gotten so sophisticated and stealthy to the point of being impressive, you might say. The truth is that most of us are gullible targets because we can easily be caught unawares. Some modes of attack <\/a>have actually weaved themselves into our everyday lives, unnoticed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been learning more about cyber security recently, and I\u2019ve been blown away by the mind-boggling facts<\/a> I\u2019ve come across. Threat actors (people with a malicious intent to cause harm digitally) work in highly coordinated and sophisticated crime groups that mostly operate on the deep and dark web. Picture this, we only use 4% <\/a>of the internet legitimately, known as the surface web. The other stark percentage belongs to mostly the bad guys. I will not go into the horrific stories painting that landscape. As Kenyans, we could use a breather from such.<\/p>\n

Most cyber breaches occur due to human error<\/a> ,and remote working has made us more vulnerable to these breaches simply because our home networks usually aren\u2019t as secure as institutional ones. A simple click on a link with well-curated and personalised content can jeopardise an entire organisation. Think about this: on a very busy work day, how many tabs do you have opened on your computer, and by extension, in your mind? Most of us would easily fall for a phishing<\/a> email purportedly coming from our boss if we aren\u2019t wired or trained to detect the nuances.\u00a0 And even with training, human bodies and minds simply get tired, stressed or sleepy at some point.<\/p>\n

The data is telling: Africa loses nearly $4 billion <\/a>annually to cybercrime and our copy-paste solutions from the west are not curbing the issue. It also doesn\u2019t help that cyber security is severely understaffed<\/a> globally; in Africa, 1 cyber security expert currently serves 177,000 people. All these statistics combined render this quote by Robert Mueller almost true: \u2018There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that will be.\u2019 <\/em>If NATO added cyber <\/a>to its military arms of air, navy, and land back in 2016, what are we actively doing to mitigate the ever-growing cyber threats?<\/p>\n

From iLab\u2019s short cyber security program <\/a>I\u2019ve been fortunate to take, I\u2019ve learnt that cyber hygiene simply begins with you and I, friend. Maybe start by not clicking every link that comes your way.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here\u2019s:<\/p>\n