20100401
allafrica

Africa, already burdened with the misnomer of being the "dark" or "forgotten" continent is soon set to get a new name; "vulnerable".

We, the citizens of this hapless continent, are now being described as the harbingers of doom of a technological kind.

Computers owners on the continent are being described as being part of a global assault machine that is being likened to a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

Why?

The arrival of international fibre optic cables - and Kenya now has three with the latest landing of the East African Marine System (EASSy) - on our shores is being described as the catalyst that will propel Africa into a global ring of infected computers.

Becoming a member of this infamous grouping could conceivably bring down the world economy, as international players use our vulnerability to their advantage.

The latest edition of Foreign Policy magazine reveals how the alarming scheme could work.

From a central hub, computers across our continent could be taken over, often without the knowledge of their owners, and set up to forward transmissions (including spam or viruses) to other computers online.

These new zombie computers, or "bots" (as in robots), serve the wishes of some master spam or virus originator, Foreign Policy states.

It would require about 100 million computers working together as one, a "botnet" -- the cybersecurity world's version of a WMD.

"One botnet of one million hosts could conservatively generate enough traffic to take most Fortune 500 companies collectively offline," Jeffrey Carr writes in his book Inside Cyber Warfare.

"A botnet of 10 million hosts could paralyze the network infrastructure of a major western nation."

The African continent, home to almost 100 million computers, would be a top target for botnet herders, with devastating results to the world economy, says Foreign Policy magazine.

Africa is apparently home to the world's most vulnerable computers, using them as a vehicle to attack other computers could bring the world economy down with a single keystroke.

Foreign Policy says while about 80 per cent of the African population lacks even rudimentary knowledge of information technologies, there are enough unprotected computers on the continent to create a very cosy environment for the international hacker.

Though Internet cafes are widespread, providers often cannot afford proper antivirus software, making computers very easy targets for skilled botnet operators and hackers.

New research from Team Cymru, an international internet security firm, says that Africa could soon "be a hotbed of activity by criminals in other parts of the world who seek to capitalize on Africa's new bandwidth capacity for their own ends.

Data from the security firm indicates that bot attacks on the continent have risen in tandem with the arrival of cheaper internet connectivity, with Egypt being singled out as a particularly attractive destination.

That this news tallies with what local security analysts have been warning should not shock us.