Interpol warns of Africa cybercrime surge, SA also affected

A new Interpol report has revealed that cybercrime now accounts for more than 30% of all reported crime in West and East Africa, and is increasing sharply elsewhere on the continent, including South Africa.

Interpol confirmed the spiking rates of cybercrime across Africa in its latest Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report this week.

South Africa

The report also revealed that online scams, particularly through phishing, were the most frequently reported cybercrimes in Africa, while ransomware, business email compromise (BEC) and digital sextortion also remain widespread.

According to the report, 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.

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Digital sextortion

According to the report, 60% of African member countries reported an increase in reports of digital sextortion, where threat actors use sexually explicit images to blackmail their targets.

The images can be authentic – shared voluntarily or obtained through coercion or deception – or they can be generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Cybercrime

Interpol said cybercrime continues to outpace the legal systems designed to stop it.

African states are struggling on several fronts, with 75% of countries confirming their legal regimes and capacities require improvement and 95% reporting insufficient training on top of resource constraints.

“At the same time, countries also reported struggling to enforce the existing laws on cybercrime, with 95% of respondents reported inadequate training, resource constraints and a lack of access to specialised tools,” Interpol said.

“Despite rising caseloads, most African member countries surveyed still lack essential IT infrastructure to combat cybercrime. Just 30% of countries reported having an incident reporting system, 29% a digital evidence repository and 19% a cyberthreat intelligence database.”

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Limitations

While cybercrime routinely crosses national borders, 86% of African member countries surveyed said their international cooperation capacity needs improvement due to slow, formal processes, a lack of operational networks, and limited access to platforms and foreign-hosted data.

Interpol said cybercrime investigations increasingly rely on cooperation from private sector partners, yet 89% of African countries said their cooperation with the private sector needed ‘significant’ or ‘some’ improvement due to unclear channels for engagement, low institutional readiness and other barriers

Ambassador Jalel Chelba, Acting Executive Director of Afripol, said 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.”

Positive note

On a positive note, Interpol claimed that several member countries have harmonised their cybersecurity laws with international standards and enhanced cybercrime response by investing in specialised units and digital forensics infrastructure.

Operation Red Card and Operation Serengeti are testaments to this good work which collectively led to more than 1 000 arrests and the dismantling of hundreds of thousands of malicious networks.

Operation Serengeti last year helped to disrupt cybercrime networks responsible for an estimated $193m in financial losses and 35 000 global victims.

Recommendations

To further improve Africa’s cybercrime response capabilities, the Interpol report proposed six strategic recommendations, including improving regional and international cooperation, expanding prevention and public awareness, and leveraging emerging technologies.

Interpol’s Africa Cyberthreat Assessment is part of the organisation’s African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC) initiative, which is aimed at strengthening the capability of African law enforcement to prevent, detect, investigate and disrupt cybercrime.

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