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Africa’s rapid digitalization is attracting major investments from global big tech firms, but its modernization efforts come with an even greater risk, with the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) warning that the region is emerging as a hotbed for online criminal activities.
In its 40-page African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, which is based on the critical information provided by law enforcement from 36 African states, INTERPOL stated that African countries are witnessing a defining shift, with cybercrimes “evolving from isolated incidents into an industrialized, borderless ecosystem.”
This came as the African region doubles down on its digital ambition, with more than 1.1 billion mobile subscriptions and over $1.1 trillion in digital transactions registered in 2025. Efforts to get people on board the World Wide Web in recent years have also materialized, with authorities recording 570 million Africans now relying on the Internet for various services.
As of 2026, Africa has an estimated population of 1.58 billion.
Despite heavily investing in digitizing a variety of services in the region, Africa’s data and network security remains weak, opening the region to financially motivated attackers.
“They are going across, scanning networks and seeing where there are vulnerabilities they can exploit,” INTERPROL’s cybercrime unit director Neal Jetton said, adding that with most transactions now happening online, it has become easier for bad actors to infiltrate digital systems using advanced tools, including artificial intelligence (AI).
Data gathered by INTERPOL showed that 55% of reported cybercrimes in Africa were conducted using AI, with deepfakes cited as the most visible manifestation of this trend.
While AI and other advanced tools have been made available in Africa to tackle cybercrime, with 33% of local agencies utilizing them for threat detection and 31% for digital forensics and open analysis, the tech literacy in the region remains low, making it harder for law enforcement authorities to keep pace with bad actors’ modern tactics
Based on current estimates, only 8% of intelligence analysts in the surveyed African countries have AI expertise, while 92% of regional law enforcement agencies lack the technical expertise in adopting AI tools.
“Criminals are now operating at machine speed, with AI enabling attacks that are faster, more scalable, and more difficult to attribute. Law enforcement, by contrast, remains constrained by legal processes, bureaucratic delays, and a lack of technical capacity,” the INTERPOL report stated.
The international criminal organization explained that the lack of technical expertise in Africa stems from insufficient and underfunded skills and training programs.
Africa‘s fragmented regulatory framework and varying definitions of cybercrime are also contributing factors to the escalation of online attacks in the region, with 31% of law enforcement authorities surveyed by INTERPOL having called on governments to consider reform, particularly in areas of digital evidence preservation, cross-border data access, and the criminalization of AI-facilitated fraud.
In 2025, Africa tallied $484 million in losses due to cybercrime, up from $192 million in 2024. Between 2019 and 2025, accumulated financial losses were estimated to be around $3 billion.
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