East Africa Threat Landscape Report 2026

Key Insights from East Africa’s Cyber Threat Landscape

• Public Administration and Finance Lead Dark Web Exposure: Public Administration accounts for 26.12% of threats, followed by Finance and Insurance at 15.67%.
• Kenya Is the Primary Regional Target: Kenya alone represents 31.43% of all dark web threats, reflecting its role as East Africa’s leading digital and fintech hub.
• Threat Activity Is Highly Profit-Driven: Selling accounts for 71.70% of dark web activity, confirming that most operations focus on monetizing stolen data and access.
• Data Theft Dominates the Underground Economy: Data and database leaks make up 76.77% of all dark web threats in the region.
• Access Sales Continue to Grow: 19.19% of dark web activity involves access listings, including compromised credentials and remote access sales.
• Ransomware Activity Is Fragmented: Qilin leads at 25%, followed by LockBit and The Gentlemen at 9.40% each, while smaller groups collectively account for 56.30% of activity.
• Seychelles Dominates Regional Phishing Activity: 96.54% of phishing attacks in the region focus on Seychelles-linked entities and platforms.
• French-Language Phishing Campaigns Are Common: Titles such as “Mon site” and “Un instant…” show heavy use of template-based French-language phishing operations.
• HTTPS Is Widely Used in Phishing: 86.10% of phishing pages use HTTPS, reducing the reliability of browser trust indicators.

Why This Report Matters

East Africa’s cyber threat landscape is increasingly shaped by financially motivated activity targeting government institutions, financial organizations, cryptocurrency services, and digital platforms. The combination of widespread data leaks, access sales, fragmented ransomware operations, and phishing campaigns highlights how attackers continue to exploit rapidly expanding digital ecosystems across the region.

Organizations must strengthen visibility into dark web exposure, improve access security, and adopt intelligence-driven approaches to reduce the risk of credential abuse, ransomware deployment, and large-scale data compromise.

Take Action Now

• Dark Web Monitoring: Detect leaked data, credentials, and access listings targeting your organization
• Ransomware Intelligence: Track active ransomware groups operating across East Africa
• Phishing Detection & Response: Identify template-based phishing infrastructure and credential harvesting campaigns
• Access Security: Strengthen MFA, monitor exposed services, and reduce remote access risks
• Threat Intelligence: Monitor evolving regional targeting trends and financially motivated threat activity