EXCLUSIVE: Confidence Staveley sounds alarm as Africa records 137m cyberattacks @Six months - ITREALMS

The Executive Director of CyberSafe Foundation, Confidence Staveley, has painted a grim picture of Africa's digital vulnerability, declaring that Sub-Saharan Africa is no longer just a spectator in global cyber warfare but a primary target for some of the world’s most aggressive digital activity, reports ITREALMS.

Citing recent data, at the formal launch of Resilio Africa, Staveley disclosed that the region recorded a staggering 42 million web attacks and 95 million malware-based attacks on devices in just the first half of 2025.

The nature of these attacks is shifting from simple nuisances to sophisticated espionage and theft, with spyware, password stealers, and backdoor tools now dominating the landscape.

Staveley’s analysis revealed that password-stealing malware has surged by more than 60 percent, signaling a coordinated effort by bad actors to compromise sensitive institutional data.

According to Staveley, the scale is even more alarming in East Africa, where Kenya alone faced 2.5 billion cyber-threat events in the first quarter of 2025, a crisis driven largely by phishing and mobile money fraud.

The core of her alert focused on Critical Community Institutions (CCIs), including hospitals, NGOs, and local government bodies that serve as the bedrock of society.

These institutions, she said, are currently classified as "easy targets" due to a heavy reliance on outdated infrastructure and unpatched systems, compounded by severely limited security budgets.

Beyond technical failings, Staveley highlighted a near-total absence of dedicated technical security personnel and a dangerous level of "structural blindness" within these organizations.

She noted that a lack of cyber-risk quantification and the near-total absence of incident response exercises mean that while some organizations might detect a threat, almost none are equipped to respond quickly enough to reduce the impact or maintain operations during a sustained attack.

She emphasized that these are not abstract numbers but real-world risks that threaten the stability of essential services.

The launch of Resilio Africa represents a strategic shift from reactive protection to intelligence-driven resilience.

Staveley noted that the program aims to move institutions away from fragmented, outdated policies toward a unified front where cybersecurity is integrated into the very fabric of digital transformation.

By building this grassroots digital shield, the initiative seeks to ensure that Africa’s essential institutions can operate safely even as the global threat environment becomes increasingly hostile.

By Chuks Egbune/Editor