Africa’s Cybercrime Losses More Than Double In One Year
Africa’s cybercrime losses jumped sharply, rising from $192 million in 2024 to $484 million in 2025. Criminals increasingly turned to artificial intelligence, mobile platforms, and cross-border networks to scale up their attacks, according to the 2026 African Cyberthreat Assessment Report from the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL).
The report named online scams as the most reported form of cybercrime across the continent. Ransomware, business email compromise, data breaches, financial fraud, and digital sextortion also continued to threaten individuals, businesses, and critical infrastructure throughout the year.
Artificial intelligence added a new layer of complexity to this threat landscape. Criminals used generative AI to automate attacks, impersonate real people, create convincing fake content, and slip past traditional security systems. Based on its full assessment, INTERPOL identified seven major threats currently shaping Africa’s digital security environment.
Ransomware Moves Beyond Extortion To Disrupting Public Services
Criminals now use ransomware for more than just demanding payment. INTERPOL found that attackers increasingly aim to disrupt public services and critical infrastructure too. The most damaging incidents in 2025 clustered in Southern and West Africa, where outdated systems, underfunded cybersecurity units, and weak reporting left many organisations exposed.
South Africa recorded 92% of all ransomware detections across Africa, based on TrendAI data cited in the report. Nigeria also featured prominently after a ransomware attack hit the Nigeria Customs Service in August 2025, disrupting cargo clearance at major ports. That disruption cost an estimated $18 million in storage fees and caused significant delays to imports.
Uganda’s Electricity Transmission Company Limited suffered a suspected ransomware attack that same month, compromising systems used to monitor the national power grid; backup protocols restored services. Namibia recorded two separate incidents in its telecom sector: one attack exposed a national provider’s customer database, while another disrupted core network functions at Paratus Telecom.
Business Email Compromise Turns Trust Into A Weapon
Business email compromise (BEC) continues to exploit one of the weakest points in digital security: human trust. Rather than attacking computer systems directly, criminals compromise email accounts or impersonate senior executives. They target employees in finance, procurement, and payroll, tricking them into transferring money or changing payment details.
Generative AI has made these attacks harder to spot, since criminals can now produce highly convincing messages that mimic an executive’s exact language and tone. TrendAI data cited by INTERPOL showed South Africa accounted for 70% of BEC detections across Africa in 2025, while Nigeria accounted for 29%.
The report highlighted one case from INTERPOL’s Operation Sentinel, where attackers based in Senegal attempted to divert $7.9 million from a petroleum company. Authorities managed to freeze the destination account, but the case showed how cybercriminal networks operating from Africa can target businesses in Europe and North America while spreading their infrastructure across multiple countries. INTERPOL said criminals typically identify employees who handle payments first, then use phishing or credential theft to break into their accounts before sending urgent, seemingly legitimate payment requests.
Online Scams Grow Into Organised Criminal Enterprises
Online scams have evolved far beyond isolated phishing attempts. They now operate as highly organised enterprises, often linked to dedicated scam centres and transnational crime networks. INTERPOL found that 72% of surveyed African countries reported scam centres operating within their borders, with Southern and West Africa recording the highest concentration.
Mobile money fraud ranked as the most common scam type, with 97% of responding countries flagging it as a major threat. Kenya alone detected 123,000 fraudulent SIM cards in 2025, giving criminals a route into SIM swaps and mobile wallet access. Ghanaians lost $1.3 million to similar fraud in just the first quarter of 2025, while Tanzania cut fraud attempts by 19% after tightening SIM registration rules.
Loan and microcredit scams also spread across West and Central Africa. Fraudulent fintech apps harvested victims’ personal data under the pretence of offering quick loans, and many victims later faced harassment and extortion.
Crypto Fraud Grows As Nigeria Becomes A Major Market
Cryptocurrency has become another key channel for fraud. INTERPOL estimated crypto transactions across the region reached $205 billion between July 2024 and July 2025, with Nigeria alone accounting for $92 billion of that total. Criminals exploited rising interest in digital assets through fake investment platforms, fraudulent trading schemes, and deepfake celebrity endorsements. In one major case, INTERPOL’s Operation Serengeti 2.0 dismantled a Zambia-based network responsible for an estimated $300 million in losses affecting around 60,000 victims.
AI Amplifies The Threat Of Digital Sextortion
Digital sextortion has also grown into a serious threat, as criminals combine social media, manipulated images, and AI-generated content to target victims. TrendAI recorded roughly 600,000 sextortion detections across Africa in 2025. South Africa accounted for 30% of these, followed by Kenya at 13%, Côte d’Ivoire at 11%, Ethiopia at 8%, and Angola at 4%.
Criminals typically build relationships with victims on social media before moving conversations to private messaging apps, where they use manipulated or fabricated material to apply pressure. Easier access to AI tools has made this threat harder to fight, since criminals can now generate convincing fake content from publicly available photos alone.
The report also flagged growing targeting of young people. Meta data cited by INTERPOL showed platforms removed 635,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts in 2025 for exploiting children, a tenfold jump from 2023. INTERPOL warned that sextortion is becoming increasingly scalable as criminals combine social media, AI-generated content, and automated messaging tools.
Data Breaches Continue Fuelling Wider Cybercrime
Data breaches increasingly serve as the starting point for other crimes. They give criminals personal and financial information they can later use for identity theft, fraud, ransomware, and business email compromise. The Shadowserver Foundation identified more than 6,000 exploitable vulnerabilities across Africa in 2025, concentrated mostly in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria.
South Africa accounted for 43.6% of detected vulnerabilities, followed by Kenya at 11.9% and Nigeria at 9.1%. Most of these involved outdated or unpatched routers, vulnerable VPNs, and misconfigured web systems. In Namibia, a telecom provider suffered a breach that exposed about 500,000 personal and financial records, reportedly linked to an unsecured administrative portal accessible from the open internet.
INTERPOL also recorded a 62% year-on-year rise in African-origin data appearing on dark web forums. The stolen data included identity documents, SIM card PINs, banking credentials, and mobile money account details, giving criminals plenty of opportunities to reuse compromised information long after the original breach.
Financial Fraud And Synthetic Identities Undermine Digital Trust
Cybercriminals are moving beyond stealing existing identities toward creating entirely synthetic ones, combining real personal information with fabricated details. According to INTERPOL, criminals use these synthetic identities to open bank accounts, secure digital loans, and register SIM cards under false names.
Nigeria’s NIN-SIM policy helped reduce certain types of fraud in 2024, but criminals simply adapted by shifting their activity toward countries and financial systems with weaker identity verification and KYC controls. SIM swap fraud remains another growing vulnerability, since controlling a victim’s phone number can unlock access to financial accounts and mobile money services. Kenya recorded a 327% increase in SIM swap fraud in 2025.
Money mule networks have further complicated the fight against financial cybercrime. Criminals recruit people, often through fake job ads, to receive and move illicit funds on their behalf. A 2025 survey cited by INTERPOL found that almost 77% of fraud-exposed individuals across Africa knew about money muling, but only 12% understood its legal consequences or recognised that participating could make them criminally complicit.
How AI Is Making Cybercrime Faster And More Scalable
Artificial intelligence increasingly acts as a force multiplier for cybercriminals, letting attacks that once required deep technical skill happen faster and at much larger scale. INTERPOL’s member country survey found that 55% of cybercrime cases in 2025 involved AI in some form: 47% involved occasional AI use, while 8% involved frequent use.
Criminals now deploy AI at nearly every stage of an attack, from identifying victims and writing phishing messages to producing deepfakes, generating synthetic identities, and adapting malicious software. Deepfake incidents increased sevenfold across Africa between the second and fourth quarters of 2024 alone. Criminals have used AI-generated audio and video to impersonate government officials, corporate executives, and public figures in fraudulent investment schemes. The report also flagged emerging malware that uses generative AI to adapt its own code, which could make traditional signature-based detection far less effective.
Law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep pace, however. Only 33% of surveyed agencies said they use AI for threat detection, and just 31% use it for digital forensics and open-source intelligence work. Only 8% of intelligence analysts had advanced AI expertise, while 92% of agencies pointed to a lack of technical expertise as the main barrier to adopting AI tools.
INTERPOL Calls For A Stronger Continental Response
With cybercriminals increasingly operating across borders and using AI to automate their work, INTERPOL called on African countries to strengthen both national capabilities and continental cooperation. The organisation recommended greater investment in national cybercrime units, including digital forensics labs, malware analysis platforms, and AI-powered threat detection systems, alongside specialised tools for mobile forensics, cryptocurrency tracing, and deepfake identification. It also called for dedicated teams focused on AI-enabled crime, crypto-asset investigations, and cyber-enabled human trafficking.
Beyond technology, INTERPOL identified cross-border cooperation as one of Africa’s biggest weaknesses in fighting cybercrime. It recommended that countries harmonise cybercrime definitions, evidence preservation procedures, and data-sharing protocols, while setting up a 24-hour regional contact network to speed up the exchange of digital evidence during major incidents.
The organisation also called for closer cooperation among law enforcement agencies, national Computer Emergency Response Teams, telecom operators, banks, and fintech companies. Under this proposed approach, mobile money operators and fintech platforms would integrate real-time fraud alerts with national cybercrime units, while telecom operators would strengthen identity verification during SIM registration and customer onboarding. INTERPOL further urged African countries to strengthen and harmonise their cybercrime laws and create expedited procedures for obtaining electronic evidence across borders, particularly in cases involving ransomware, BEC, and deepfake-enabled crimes.
