Increased technology awareness within the Kenyan government has led to increased spending on IT security, said James Kinyua, managing director of Isolutions Associates, the local partner of Kaspersky Lab.

After recent virus attacks, the government has started taking IT security seriously, Kinyua said.

In May of last year, a virus known as Kibaki crippled networks. Then, in the run up to general elections, there were the Raila and Kalonzo viruses, while the Obama virus began attacking machines and networks this year.

“With the viruses, the writers were local, and they understand the habits of local IT users - that people just click without considering whether it is an executable file or not,” Kinyua said. “Luckily, Kaspersky Lab was very supportive. We updated them on the viruses, and they responded fast.”

“The viruses affected businesses in East Africa but did not get to the USA or Europe, and perhaps that is why it took [so] long to wipe out,” he added. “The writers proved that they can hardcode a virus from scratch and terrorize the country for a year, which means businesses are at risk.”

With the promise of cheaper bandwidth through fiber-optic cables, Kinyua noted that more people will go online, banks will continue offering online services, and users will be more exposed to hackers and viruses.

Kaspersky Lab is providing tools for mail server protection, Web protection and file server protection.