A new report by the international police organisation has revealed escalating levels of cyber-crime across the continent and inadequate capabilities to fight it.
INTERPOL has confirmed spiking rates of cyber-crime across Africa in its latest Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report. Published yesterday (23 June), the agency confirmed that cyber-crime accounted for over 30% of all crime reported in Eastern and Western Africa, with 90% of countries requiring a significant upgrade in law enforcement and prosecution capabilities.
The dominant issues included phishing and other online scams, business email compromise (BEC), ransomware and digital sextortion. Two-thirds of African states confirmed that cyber-crime made up a medium-to-high proportion of all criminal activity.
Scam notifications spiked by up to a staggering 3,000% in some jurisdictions, and ransomware detections surged in heavily digitised countries, with South Africa receiving 17,849 attacks and Egypt hit by 12,281 over the past year. Nigeria and Kenya also experienced 3,459 and 3,030 attacks, respectively.
Additionally, BEC fraud equipped criminal organisations such as the multi-million-dollar transnational syndicate Black Axe.
The rise of artificial intelligence has added complexity to the cyber-crime environment, with 60% of states reporting a rise in digital sextortion as criminals use both genuine and artificially generated images.
INTERPOL highlighted that the advance of cyber-crime has far outrun the ability of law enforcement to address it. African states are struggling on several fronts, with 75% of countries confirming their legal regimes and capacities required improvement and 95% reporting insufficient training on top of resource constraints.
Meanwhile, only 30% of countries reported having an incident reporting system, 29% confirmed a digital evidence base, and 19% reported having a cyber-threat intelligence database.
Governmental agencies also heavily rely on cross-border cooperation and private sector partners. However, 86% of states noted their capacity for international cooperation needed improvement, and 89% of countries said their cooperation with the private sector required strengthening.
However, INTERPOL also highlighted the progress made by several African countries in cyber-crime prevention over the last year, including efforts in Operation Serengeti between September and October 2024 and Operation Red Card between November 2024 and February 2025, which led to combined arrests of over 1,000 criminals and the dismantling of hundreds of thousands of dangerous networks.
INTERPOL cyber-crime director Neal Jetton said in a statement: “This fourth edition of the INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment provides a vital snapshot of the current situation […] It paints a clear picture of a threat landscape in flux, with emerging dangers like AI-driven fraud that demand urgent attention.”
AFRIPOL acting executive director ambassador Jalel Chelba added: “Cybersecurity is not merely a technical issue; it has become a fundamental pillar of stability, peace, and sustainable development in Africa. It directly concerns the digital sovereignty of states, the resilience of our institutions, citizen trust and the proper functioning of our economies.”
Click Here For The Original Source.
