Microsoft expands AccountGuard security service to African countries

Microsoft is now expanding its AccountGuard cybersecurity service to Africa, following a successful period in several European countries, the US, and some in Asia, too.

The Redmond tech giant announced recently that the move is part of Microsoft’s Democracy Forward Initiative and will initially cover Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. It brings a total of 40 countries covered by AccountGuard, including the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, and more.

“In this era of AI, we unfortunately witness many malicious actors using large language models (LLMs) to execute phishing attacks, ransomware attacks, and password spray attacks to name a few,” says Daniel Brown, Microsoft Africa’s general manager.

Launched back in 2018, Microsoft AccountGuard is a part of the Redmond company’s efforts to protect democratic institutions and high-risk organizations from cyber threats, particularly those posed by nation-state actors.

This service, available to political candidates, nonprofit organizations, and tech vendors focused on democracy, offers threat detection and notification for cyberattacks, security guidance, and early access to new security features.

It also provides unified threat alerts across both organizational and personal accounts, along with specialized educational resources and live sessions to address security needs specific to politically oriented organizations.

Last month, Microsoft reported in its annual Digital Defense Report that at least over 600 million cyberattacks occurred on a daily basis. The company has also dealt with 1.25 million Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, just like the Internet Archive’s outage a while ago.