Artificial intelligence is enabling 55 per cent of reported cybercrimes across Africa making attacks faster, more scalable, and increasingly difficult for victims and platforms to detect, according to INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026.
With more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers recorded in 2025, Africa’s digital transformation is expanding rapidly.
However, cybercrime legislation is fragmented and AI readiness in law enforcement agencies remains alarmingly low.
The 40-page report draws on survey data from 36 African member countries and highlights a defining shift: cyber-criminality has evolved from isolated incidents into an industrialized, borderless ecosystem.
Read more…
Source: INTERPOL
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Phantom Taurus: A New Chinese Nexus APT and the Discovery of the NET-STAR Malware Suite
September 30, 2025
Phantom Taurus is a previously undocumented nation-state actor whose espionage operations align with People’s Republic of China (PRC) state interests. Over the past two and a half years, Unit 42 researchers have observed Phantom Taurus targeting government and telecommunications organizations across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Their observations show that Phantom Taurus’ main focus areas ...
- African authorities dismantle massive cybercrime and fraud networks, recover millions
August 22, 2025
LYON, France – In a sweeping INTERPOL-coordinated operation, authorities across Africa have arrested 1,209 cybercriminals targeting nearly 88,000 victims. The crackdown recovered USD 97.4 million and dismantled 11,432 malicious infrastructures, underscoring the global reach of cybercrime and the urgent need for cross-border cooperation. Operation Serengeti 2.0 (June to August 2025) brought together investigators from 18 African ...
- Cyber attack on Nigeria Customs Service disrupts clearance operations
August 14, 2025
A cyber attack on the Information Communication Technology (ICT) platform of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has caused significant disruptions to cargo clearance operations at ports across the country. Licensed Customs agents are already counting their losses to demurrage charges on their consignments as a result of the disruption. Confirming the development, NCS spokesman and Assistant ...
- Pakistan among least affected by web threats
May 25, 2025
At its annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team presented cybersecurity trends, including ransomware, advanced persistent threats (APTs), supply chain attacks, mobile threats, artificial intelligence and IoT developments. The first quarter of 2025 showed that Turkiye and Kenya had the highest number of ...
- Cyber crime a big threat to Nigeria’s oil, gas sector
May 14, 2025
Nigeria’s strategic oil and gas industry has been urged to beef up its cyber security and avoid massive potential cost to the economy if current measures fail. According to Check Point’s African Perspectives on Cyber Security Report 2024, Nigeria continues to face one of the highest frequencies of cyber attacks in Africa, with organisations being attacked ...
- BPFDoor’s Hidden Controller Used Against Asia, Middle East Targets
April 14, 2025
The stealthy rootkit-like malware known as BPFDoor (detected as Backdoor.Linux.BPFDOOR) is a backdoor with strong stealth capabilities, most of them related to its use of Berkeley Packet Filtering (BPF). In a previous article, Trend Micro researchers covered how BPFDoor and BPF-enabled malware work. BPFDoor has been active for at least four years, with a report by ...