How Fintech Innovation is Culling African Cyber-threats

South Africa is the cybercrime hub of Africa, according to the largest international police organization in the world ‘INTERPOL’.

The unfortunate title was bestowed upon the country off the back of a recording breaking 2022, which saw the country hit a dizzying 230 million thread detections throughout the year, more than double any other country. South Africa also ranked third highest in total number of cyber-crime victims worldwide, costing their market over 2 billion ZAR a year.

The trend is set to worsen too. That’s because off-the-shelf ‘hacker kits’ are already becoming readily available, in addition to an increasing prevalence of ‘hacker for hire’ services.

Encouraging ‘non-tech’ individuals to hack

Another emerging threat is Ransomware as a Service (RaaS). This is allowing even non-technical individuals to engage in criminal cyber activity, such as financial theft – causing online devastation to both to individuals and corporations – never mind the threat to national security.

So, it’s more important than ever that organisations – especially those in the Fintech sector – become ever-more vigilant. And certainly, never become complacent, believing their ‘up to date’ systems are unbreakable. Thankfully, there are pioneering businesses in the industry that are constantly implementing and deploying new strategies to stay one step-ahead in the security arms-race.

Today we speak to the Chief Technical Officer of the South African online credit provider Wonga. Michael Lazarus explains that staying ahead is an ever-evolving process and it’s likely to continue this way for a long time.

Companies have to ‘keep on top’

Not only that, but it’s an issue that companies themselves should take responsibility for – rather than the onus being on the individual customer.

“Identity theft, hacking, malware, phishing and vishing, not to mention SIM swops and data breaches, are all developing at an alarming level,” said Lazarus.

“And there is no getting away from the fact that it is the company’s responsibility to protect their customers, regardless of the company’s size. Even the smallest of firms have to take the necessary measures to ensure the safety of their data, systems and the infrastructure that surrounds it.”

‘Real time’ transactions are biggest threat

When it comes to the issue of risk, Lazarus says it is demand for real-time transactions that is the big threat. But there is no getting away from the fact that we demand ‘instant’ decisions these days. Unfortunately, the upshot is that it makes our data more vulnerable than ever before.

Another big threat to data security is the ‘globalization’ of business.

“As critical systems are becoming borderless, protecting the perimeter and, more critically, customer data is vital,” Lazarus added.

As one of its key strategy measures, the South African based lender has adopted a zero-trust model to signing up new customers. In other words, a policy of ‘trust earned, not given.’ To this end every user or device which enters the Wonga system is challenged, and access only granted when a two-factor authentication test is passed. It’s a model which particularly protects against possible endpoint compromises (ie phishing and malware).

South Africa was the third highest in the world for Cybercrime two years ago, according to the Norton Cyber Safety Insights Report. So, it’s no wonder Lazarus was determined his cyber security measures were going to be as robust as possible. Especially when you consider the total financial loss was the equivalent of over 2 billion Rand.