Organisations in Nigeria are now facing an average of 4,200 cyberattacks every week, more than double the global average, revealing how the country has become one of the most pressured digital environments worldwide, according to Check Point Software Technologies’ African Perspectives on Cyber Security Report 2025.
The data places Nigeria at the centre of a continental problem. While Africa’s digital economy is expanding speedily, security readiness is struggling to keep pace.
Across the continent, organisations recorded an average of 3,153 cyberattacks per week, compared with 1,963 globally, putting Africa among the most targeted regions in the world.
In Nigeria, the financial sector is the main target. Banks, payment platforms, and fintech firms continue to face heavy pressure from phishing, business email compromise, and credential theft.
Telecoms, energy, and healthcare operators are also seeing growing exposure as cloud services, mobile platforms, and connected devices are rolled out faster than security controls can mature.
The unique part is not just volume, but method. Across Africa, 77% of organisations were affected by information disclosure incidents, meaning sensitive data was exposed through misconfigurations, weak access controls, or unsecured systems.
Email is the most effective entry point, responsible for 80% of malicious file delivery, showing that basic weaknesses are still being exploited at scale.
Ransomware has also changed shape. The report shows that 41% of major incidents in Africa now involve data-leak extortion, where attackers steal information and threaten public exposure rather than relying solely on system encryption.
This approach increases reputational damage and regulatory risk, even when core operations remain running.
In Nigeria, identity theft, stolen session tokens, and API abuse are now more common than traditional malware attacks. In simple terms, attackers are logging in using valid credentials instead of forcing their way through defences.
Beyond Nigeria, several African countries are facing high pressure when it comes to cyberattacks. Kenya recorded 3,758 attacks per organisation each week, while South Africa, Morocco, and other markets continue to see heavy targeting of government services, education systems, and telecom infrastructure.
The operational cost of these attacks is rising. African organisations take an average of 18 days to detect and contain a breach, six days longer than the global average. The report links this delay to skills shortages, fragmented tools, and limited incident response capacity across many sectors.
High-profile incidents in 2025 underline the risk. Data exposure at Seychelles Commercial Bank, service disruption at South African Airways, and unauthorised access to customer data at MTN South Africa all followed a similar pattern: customer-facing systems were targeted, investigations were triggered, and trust became the real casualty.
Regulation is now increasing the pressure. With Europe enforcing stricter cybersecurity regulations under the NIS2 directive, African companies that trade with EU partners are expected to prove strong cyber controls as a condition for market access. Security, the report notes, has become a commercial requirement, not a back-office concern.
From Nigeria to the rest of the continent, Africa’s digital growth is speeding up, but attackers are moving just as fast.
Cybersecurity in Africa has gone beyond preparing for future risks. The threat is already here, and for countries like Nigeria, the cost of inaction is becoming impossible to ignore.
