As Africa's digitalisation advances, so does its vulnerability, with countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco seeing targeted cyber-attacks on government, education, and financial institutions.

This is according to Check Point, a cyber security company that released its 2024 African Perspectives on Cyber security report yesterday.

Check Point says the cyber security sector is growing by 20-25% annually, fuelled by investments in infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence-driven solutions.

The report says South Africa has seen 3,312 attacks on government institutions every week and a 90% increase in ransomware, with cybercrime costing the country nearly 1% of GDP.

Kenya, in East Africa, sees 4,719 attacks on the government sector each week, indicating an urgent need for enhanced defenses.

According to the report, Nigeria sees 4,718 attacks every week, which is one of the highest in Africa.

In a recent incident, the report states that a banking trojan assault affected 100,000 customer accounts, resulting in a $3 million loss.

Morocco is one of Africa's most targeted countries, with 8,733 attacks on government entities reported each week, the report says.

According to Check Point, the Moroccan government recently faced a state-sponsored cyberattack that compromised classified communications, raising significant national security concerns.

“Organisations in Africa are attacked roughly 3300 times per week, if we look at the global average it is about 1 800, it is almost double the attacks,” says Hendrik de Bruin, head of security consulting at Check Point SADC during the presentation.

Check Point notes that the continent's GDP is predicted to exceed $4 trillion by 2027, and digital infrastructure has emerged as a key driver of economic growth. However, rapid digitisation has resulted in increased vulnerability.

De Bruin explains: “We are slowly, but surely digitalising our industries, we are digitising our governments, private sectors are digitising themselves, so we have got an expanding digital attack footprint.

“We also have cloud adoption, which is not new, but picking up pace in Africa. That is another way that these attackers are using to gain access to organisations, and we also see a large uptake on cloud specific attacks as well.”