Cybersecurity Alert: 10 African Countries Frequently Targeted by DDoS Attacks
The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which is one of the most favourable tools for hackers, majorly disrupts network availability, applications and services. It is a type of cyber assault that overwhelms a network, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users.
Bryan Hamman, NETSCOUT’s Regional Director for Africa said NETSCOUT’s ASERT team documented over 10 million DDoS attacks in 2023, averaging over 30,000 attacks daily.
“This equated to more than 1,000 attacks every hour globally, with a new attack being launched nearly every 2.5 seconds. This sheer volume underscores the critical need for robust and adaptive defenses” the report noted.
According to NETSCOUT DDoS Threat Intelligence Report for H1 2024, the following African countries witnessed the highest DDoS attacks during the review period.
| Rank | Country | Attack frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Africa | 230,416 |
| 2 | Namibia | 76,337 |
| 3 | Morocco | 61,595 |
| 4 | Kenya | 57,319 |
| 5 | Egypt | 45,018 |
| 6 | Angola | 14,281 |
| 7 | Ghana | 4,753 |
| 8 | Tunisia | 4,511 |
| 9 | Mozambique | 3,145 |
| 10 | Guinea | 2,918 |
South Africa witnessed the most DDoS attacks in H1, 2024 with critical infrastructure like wireless telecommunications carriers, other computer related services, insurance agencies and brokerages, beauty salons and electronic computer manufacturing witnessing major attacks.
The west African region, led by Ghana was the third most targeted region. Ghana experienced the highest number of cyber-attacks, with 4,753 incidents, followed closely by Guinea with 2,918. Nigeria, a major digital hub ranked third and reported 2,721 attacks.
Wireless telecommunications carriers were the primary targets in several countries, including Benin (196 attacks), Senegal (107), Mali (32), and Cameroon (16). Additionally, there was a notable increase in attacks on banking and financial services, government institutions, and public utilities, such as energy providers, highlighting the expanding threat landscape in the region
According to Hamman, the primary motivation behind these cyberattacks is financial gain, as hackers target businesses with the intention of extorting money.
These attacks, which can rapidly escalate in severity, pose a significant threat to critical civilian services in countries that hold opposing views to the hacktivists’ beliefs, potentially disrupting essential infrastructure and causing widespread harm.
