CIO OPINION
CIO
opinion
CIO OPINION
“
THE
CONCENTRATION OF
CORPORATE MAILBOXES
AND OPERATIONAL
DEPENDENCY ON
THE MICROSOFT
ENVIRONMENT EXPOSES
MANY VULNERABILITIES.
//////////////////
Brian Pinnock, Regional Manager, Mimecast Africa and the Middle East
The war on cybercrime – why
all Kenyan organisations
need to play their part
Brian Pinnock, Regional
Manager, Mimecast
Africa and the Middle
East, discusses how the
new cybercrime bill is a
crucial move in Kenya’s
cybercrime war, but that
all organisations will need
to play their part.
44
INTELLIGENTCIO
C
yberattacks in Kenya are on the
rise. There’s barely a day that goes
by where you don’t hear about
a major data breach or an organisation
that has unsuspectingly fallen victim
to ransomware, spear-phishing or
impersonation fraud. The government
has seen the urgency and has signed
the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes
Act into law. And while most of the news
coverage has focused on the perceived
negatives of the legislation – including
restrictions around freedom of expression
and access to information – individuals
should be pleased that cybercriminals will
now face consequences. According to a
2017 Serianu study, cybercrime cost Kenya
Ksh21.1 billion in 2017, so it seems that
criminals have had free rein up until now. the cloud. The benefits of cloud email
providers like Office 365 are clear as
businesses of all sizes can now benefit
from its collaboration capabilities,
improving productivity.
Public and private organisations in
Kenya are moving in their droves to It’s therefore clear that the new
cybercrime bill comes at a critical time
However, what a lot of organisations
don’t realise is that while email is the
number one business application used
by companies, it’s also the number one
vector used to execute cyberattacks like
malware delivery, phishing and business
email compromise. As businesses move
to a cloud-based email environment,
new challenges enter the landscape.
The concentration of corporate
mailboxes and operational dependency
on the Microsoft environment exposes
many vulnerabilities.
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