Why your savings in Saccos are not safe

About half of the Saccos in the country have no systems to protect members’ funds from cybercriminals, according to a new report.

Serianu Ltd, A business consulting firm, in its 2018 Cybersecurity Report said Saccos are now the new hunting ground for tech-savvy cybercriminals, putting at risk the Sh443 billion industry coffers.

The firm’s survey found that about 50 per cent of the 100 Saccos polled were found not to have any cybersecurity measures in place.

According to the survey report, only 56 per cent of the Saccos have a budget for cybersecurity, with 97 per cent of these allocating a paltry Sh1 million for the same.

Kenya lost more than Sh21.2 billion through cybercrime last year, with Sh7 billion of this amount lost through the financial service providers like banks, Saccos and other money transfer channels.

Serianu Managing Director William Makatani speaking at the report’s launch in Nairobi yesterday said lack of concern by Saccos’ management to deal with potential cyber threats is a major source of concern.

The biggest concern, he said, is the fact that 38 per cent of Saccos in the country allow “bring your own devices policies” in their operations which is among the most lethal cybersecurity threats.

“Bring your own device (BYOD) usage increases the number of attack vectors that an attacker would use to gain unauthorised access into a Sacco, hence it is crucial that all Saccos that permit usage of own device to have an active BYOD policy in an effort to mitigate potential threats,” Makatani said.

BYOD refers to the policy of permitting employees to bring personally devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones to their workplace and use these devices to access privileged company information and applications.

Mr Mekatani also said only 40 per cent of the Saccos in the country have adopted Cloud and IoTs technologies, while only 23 per cent of them have a policy for the same.