With a rapidly growing online population and historically weak cyber defenses, African nations are on the front line of cyberattacks. That position makes them a warning beacon and a potential model for developing methods to confront such attacks.
“Africa has a unique opportunity to lead in combatting new threats, helping to shape the future of cyber defense,” Kerissa Varma, Microsoft’s chief security advisor for Africa, wrote in a recent analysis.
Africa’s online infrastructure is bombarded daily with hundreds of thousands of attempted cyberattackswith Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan reporting the most attacks in 2025. South Sudan’s rapidly expanding internet footprint has made the country a magnet for hackers targeting its oil industry and banking sector, according to analysts. Those attacks often are created using AI technology designed to mimic real people to trick recipients into triggering malicious software.
“This threat landscape has catalyzed the formation of cyber command units, blending military expertise with civilian oversight to mitigate risks and enhance resilience,” analyst King Richard Igimoh wrote recently for the website Africa Defence and Security.
The vast majority of cyberattacks across Africa target the continent’s financial systems, but attackers are increasingly going after public utilities and individual businesses with ransomware or denial-of-service attacks. Ransomware locks down a system until the victim pays to have it restored. Denial-of-service attacks flood websites with fake traffic, rendering them useless.
Across West Africa and East Africa, cybercrime accounts for at least 30% of all crime reported, according to Interpol’s Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2025. Nigeria, which has the continent’s largest online population, is a major source of cyberattacks and a victim. But it also has become a model for defending against them thanks to its National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Countries in North Africa and Southern Africa have some of the continent’s most sophisticated cyber defenses but remain the targets of relentless attacks. Egypt, for example, accounted for 13% of all cyberattacks on the continent. AI-generated deepfake voice and video impersonations frequently target South African internet users.
Despite rising caseloads, most countries still lack essential cybercrime infrastructure, according to Interpol.
“The widespread use of smartphones has made mobile platforms a primary target for cybercriminals, particularly in regions with high mobile banking adoption,” Interpol stated in its report.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which make up 90% of African businesses, have become easy targets for cybercriminals because their owners often use mobile devices to conduct businesses and lack the training to prevent breaches, Varma noted. The rate of attacks against those businesses can be more than double the rate against large companies, she added.
“A breach in one SME can ripple across supply chains or financial networks, and even government services,” Varma wrote. “Securing SMEs is essential to securing Africa’s broader digital ecosystem, and in turn, by sharing this information among international collaborators, helping strengthen defenses globally.”
As Africa continues to be the testing ground for new cyberattacks, citizens and businesses serve as a global early warning system, particularly for increasingly sophisticated AI-generated attacks designed to trick people into activating them, according to analysts.
“Africa’s SMEs are no longer passive recipients of cybersecurity solutions, they are active architects of a safer digital future,” Varma wrote. “African SMEs are in a unique position to identify regional threat actors and tactics.”
Collaboration across companies and borders remains crucial to defeating such cyber threats early. Here, African nations continue to fall short, according to Interpol.
But there are encouraging signs. Nigeria, for example, has deepened its cooperation with international partners by sharing intelligence under the African Union’s cybersecurity framework.
Investing in modern cyber defense strategies can help African countries lead the global effort to defeat rapidly evolving online threats.
“This spirit of innovation, combined with sharing and receiving real-time threat data about emerging tactics with regional peers, industry groups and governments could have a profound impact, not just for the continent, but for the world,” Varma wrote.
