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:
- South Africa: Unprecedented cyber attacks target government entities
September 5, 2023
The incidence of spyware attacks has shown a significant surge of over 20% within South Africa with regard to 2023. The majority of these reported attacks have been concentrated on governmental websites and systems, thereby potentially engendering substantial instability to the national security framework of South Africa. The foundational principle of national security mandates that a ...
- Summary of South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA)
September 4, 2023
South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPIA), also known as the PoPI Act, is a comprehensive data protection legislation designed to safeguard the privacy and information of South African citizens. While Jacob Zuma assented to PoPIA in November 2013, the act took effect in July 2020. Parliament granted all South African entities a one-year ...
- Anonymous Sudan hacks X to put pressure on Elon Musk over Starlink
August 31, 2023
A hacking group called Anonymous Sudan took X, formerly known as Twitter, offline in more than a dozen countries on Tuesday morning in an attempt to pressurise Elon Musk into launching his Starlink service in their country. X was down for more than two hours, with thousands of users affected. “Make our message reach to Elon ...
- INTERPOL: 14 arrests, thousands of illicit cyber networks disrupted in Africa operation
August 18, 2023
DAR ES SALAM, Tanzania – INTERPOL and AFRIPOL have coordinated an operation across 25 African countries that enabled investigators to arrest 14 suspected cybercriminals and identify 20,674 suspicious cyber networks, highlighting the surge in digital insecurity and cyber threats in the region. The networks identified were linked to financial losses of more than USD 40 ...
- Unknown actor targets power generator with DroxiDat and Cobalt Strike
August 10, 2023
Recently Kaspersky pushed a report about an interesting and common component of the cybercrime malware set – SystemBC. And, in much the same vein as the 2021 Darkside Colonial Pipeline incident, they found a new SystemBC variant deployed to a critical infrastructure target. This time, the proxy-capable backdoor was deployed alongside Cobalt Strike beacons in ...
- Malawi: Macra Warns Public to Be On High Alert Against Heightened Cyber Attacks in Comesa Region
July 30, 2023
Malawi Computer Response Team (mwCERT) of the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) announces of recent cyber-attacks that have targeted several countries in the COMESA region, resulting in severe disruptions to critical information infrastructure, across various sectors. In a statement, MACRA Director General, Daud Suleman says “these online attacks have the potential to affect anyone due to ...