Above three quarter of Kenyan sites vulnerable to cyber attack

More than 80 percent of the Kenyan sites are on the verge off attack from cyber criminals since they are using the free available platforms and codes for the development of their sites. The codes of the software which are used to develop the sites are available freely online for download and usage- The report by Serianu - an IT security  consulting firm . The firm found that more than 80 percent of Kenya local based websites are built on open source software such as Joomla, Apache and MySQL and their security settings not customized to reach the requirements.  Unlike other proprietary software such as Microsoft or IBM programs whose codes are only available to the vendor and the client, open source software source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.

In Tanzania we are facing the same risk since of the official government sites are made out of Joomla development platform in which its easier for people with advanced knowledge of the platform to temper with the codes and explore the vulnerability which comes with the software. By using these platform someone can easily access the source codes and initiate the SQL Injection attack or even the Denial of Service (DOS) attack to the site.

 I remember back in 2009 The Tanzania National Government Website was under Denial of Service (DOS) during our Independence day people from Asia where not able to visit or even access the sites, something should be done to protect these sites from the attackers by enhancing security or even using other methods of sites development which ensure security to the local sites