Africa-Press – Gambia. Group-IB, a global cybersecurity leader headquartered in Singapore, has made a key contribution to the INTERPOL-led Africa Cyber Surge II operation, a major joint initiative between international and national law enforcement agencies and private sector cybersecurity companies to prevent, mitigate, and disrupt threat actors on the African continent.
The Africa Cyber Surge II operation, which spanned 25 African countries, resulted in the arrests of 14 suspected cybercriminals and the identification of more than 20,000 suspicious cyber networks linked to financial losses in excess of USD $40 million.
The Africa Cyber Surge II operation was launched in April 2023 and was carried out with funding by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, the German Federal Foreign Office and the Council of Europe.
This multinational, streamlined crime-fighting initiative brought together INTERPOL, AFRIPOL, Group-IB, and Uppsala Security to provide on-the-ground operational support and share actionable intelligence on cyber extortion, phishing, business email compromise, and online scams.
This intelligence was subsequently shared with national law enforcement agencies on the African continent, leading to the arrest of 14 suspects in countries such as Cameroon, Nigeria, and Mauritius, and the takedown of hundreds of malicious IP addresses and malware hosters. Additionally, the educational track of this operation saw parties share best practices on how to combat the surge in digital insecurity and growing cyber threats in the region.
Group-IB, a long-standing private sector partner of INTERPOL, collected and shared at the request of INTERPOL more than 1,000 indicators drawn from the company’s sector-leading Threat Intelligence related to malicious infrastructure across Africa. The data contained domains, URLs, and server IP addresses used in phishing and malware attacks. INTERPOL member countries in Africa leveraged this information in several takedown operations.
Africa Cyber Surge II also had knowledge sharing at its core. During operational activities held in Tanzania In June, Group-IB’s Deputy Head of APAC High-Tech Crime Investigation Department, Kristina Ivanova, shared expertise on techniques to tackle business email compromise scams, phishing and online fraud, and also contributed to a panel discussion on the importance of public-private sector partnerships in tackling cybercrime. Group-IB experts also assisted national law enforcement agencies on the African continent via a series of practical workshops dedicated to the analysis of real cybercrime cases.
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