Throughout 2021, global news seemed to ricochet between the rapid spread of new COVID-19 iterations and cyber criminality — both becoming more creative and disruptive as they mutate in a battle for survival; both intertwined as cybercriminals profit from COVID-19 lockdowns forcing rapid digitalization.
A famous cybersecurity executive recently stated in an interview that, aside from birth, death, and taxes, the only other certainty in our present existence is the exponential increase of digital dangers. However, misconceptions about cybersecurity, notably that it is difficult, expensive, onerous, and even pointless, have caused many emerging countries to overlook cybersecurity as they aspire to join the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
States, on the other hand, may find themselves unable to fully utilize the promise of their digital economy if they do not have well-developed cybersecurity legislation. Reframing cybersecurity as a road to opportunity and competitive advantage in the creation of innovation ecosystems may be the key to boosting individual governments’ cyber resilience while also strengthening the global digital ecosystem for everyone.
Emerging digital economies are racing to be at the forefront of the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution, with 10 billion devices expected to join by 2025. Around $2.4 billion invested in African businesses in 2020 and e-commerce revenues in Africa are expected to reach $75 billion by 2025.
It is the most entrepreneurial continent, with half of the 40 fastest growing emerging and developing countries. As measures to narrow the digital divide by 2030 link the remaining 78 percent of the population to the internet, this tendency will only intensify.
However, as internet access grows, so does worldwide cybercrime. Cybercrime is expected to cost the global economy $10.5 trillion per year by 2025, according to experts. While more technologically sophisticated countries have strengthened their cyber defenses, Africa’s innovation economy remains one of the least well-protected in the world. Only 10 African nations out of 55 have signed the African Union Convention on Data Protection and Cybersecurity (the Malabo Convention), and Africa continues to rank last in the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Index.
Only 29 African nations have any sort of cybersecurity law, and only 19 have a cyber incident and emergency response teams, despite ITU and World Bank attempts. As a result, African economies are left vulnerable and African leaders are excluded from the groups that shape global cybersecurity policy. When seen from a global perspective, this increasing investment in innovation systems without corresponding investment in security produces a digital maturity-security conundrum, in which attackers might take advantage of the gap between these two degrees of maturity.
As a result, persons within the states, as well as the states themselves, are exposed and vulnerable on two levels, as they become low-hanging fruit for opportunistic and nasty cyber thieves. This, in a scenario similar to vaccine geopolitics, risks exposing governments to young and vulnerable innovation systems.
