As Africa enters a critical phase of digital transformation, technology is driving unprecedented growth, connectivity, and innovation across the continent.
However, this rapid digital expansion has also significantly widened the cyber threat landscape, exposing organizations and governments to increasingly sophisticated attacks
In a report titled “2025 African Perspectives on Cyber Security” by Check Point, cyber attacks across Africa are becoming faster, more targeted, and increasingly powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Check Point noted that Africa’s digital growth continues to outpace security maturity creating opportunity for identity-led intrusions. Across Africa, organizations are operating under sustained and elevated cyber pressure. Over the past six months, on average an organization has faced 3,153 attack attempts per week, compared with 1,963 globally.
Information disclosure remains the most common exploit class in the region, impacting 77% of organizations. Email remains the dominant delivery vector, accounting for 80% of malicious files.
In Nigeria, organizations now record an average of 4,200 attack attempts per week, more than double the global average, confirming that adversaries are scaling fast as digital transformation itself. The financial sector remains the epicentre of these threats.
Phishing and business e-mail compromise persist as dominant entry points, proving that awareness training is just as vital as technology. Beyond finance, energy, and healthcare operators are integrating IoT and cloud-based systems, creating efficiencies but also new vulnerabilities.
Nigeria’s threat picture aligns with global shifts. Nation-state operators leverage AI-assisted disinformation, disruptive malware, and hacktivism to weaken trust and set conditions for access. Ransomware affiliates emphasize data-leak extortion over encryption and infostealers have surged, harvesting browser and VPN tokens to feed initial access brokers.
Government entities remain high-value targets for both state-aligned and financially motivated actors. Higher education and research institutions face consistent pressure from infostealers and botnet-delivered leaders that harvest credentials and tokens, with targeted data-leak extortion following mailbox compromise. Common gaps include SSO/email misconfigurations, exposed tokens, and over-permissive data shares that increase lateral movement risk across academic platforms.
On the other hand, Banks, insurers, and payment providers draw persistent attention from organised cybercrime. Infostealers that capture VPN/session tokens remain a primary on-ramp while credential stuffing and API abuse target consumer portals. Telcos face sustained risk-across customer-facing portals and management planes. Identity misuse and exposed APIs drive incidents, while ransomware crews lean on data-leak extortion and pervasive infostealer infections siphon tokens from BYOD/VPN contexts.
Encouragingly, Nigeria’s cybersecurity maturity is rising. Organizations are deploying layered prevention-first architectures across perimeter, endpoint, and cloud environments.
Elsewhere on the continent, South Africa remains one of the most targeted markets in Africa, facing a complex mix of legacy vulnerabilities, rapid digital adoption, and an expanding threat surface that mirrors its economic growth. Check Point reveals that South African entities face thousands of attacks weekly with phishing, data exfiltration, and DDoS activity dominating the threat spectrum.
In Kenya, the East African country faced 3,758 attacks per week on average, compared with 1,963 globally. The most common vulnerability exploit type in the country, is information disclosure, impacting 77% of the organizations. The country’s embrace of mobile banking, fintech innovation, and digital government has accelerated national growth, but has also expanded cyber attacks.
As Africa’s leading markets continue to face escalating and sophisticated cyber pressure, the continent’s resilience lies in the strength of its partnerships. Stronger public–private partnerships, cross-border intelligence sharing, workforce training, and identity-centric security strategieswill be critical.
As digital transformation accelerates, aligning cybersecurity maturity with innovation will determine whether Africa can sustain growth while safeguarding trust in its digital future.
