Tunisia among Arab countries most affected by cyberpiracy

A report by Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky revealed that a number of Arab countries have recently suffered piracy and hacking attacks.

According to data collected by the company between November 2019 and October 2020, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Qatar, Morocco and Somalia are among twenty countries where internet users face the greatest risks of exposure to piracy and hacking attacks.

Tunisia ranked first in the world in terms of the percentage of users exposed to the greatest risks of hacking via the internet (18.27 per cent), followed by Algeria with 16.42 per cent and Mongolia with 15.94 per cent.

Libya ranked sixth with 14.25 per cent, while Qatar ranked 15th, Morocco 16th and Somalia ranked 20th.

The list included other Arab countries that had suffered other forms of attacks and cyber threats, including Yemen, Sudan and Syria.

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Among the top ten countries exposed to ransomware and Trojan horse virus attacks, Bangladesh ranked first, followed by Mozambique and Turkmenistan, while Sudan came in ninth place worldwide.

Yemen was listed among the most exposed countries to cyber threats in the banking sector and malware to ATMs and payment terminals.

Uzbekistan ranked first, followed by Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, while Yemen came in sixth place and Syria the eighth worldwide.

During the preparation of the report, Kaspersky detected 21 new ransomware families. Ransomware Trojans were used to attack 549,301 authentic users, including 12,630 users linked to large companies and 15,940 users associated with small and medium-sized businesses.