The swift expansion of digital technology in Africa, has now come to a crucial and dangerous turning point. This development is caused by a sharp increase in mobile financial services, digital onboarding and fintech platforms, in which the total accumulated data shows that the continent had over 1.1 billion mobile subscribers by 2025. At the same time, this highly populated digital environment has resulted in a much larger and more vulnerable area for cyberattacks.
In its 2026 African Cyberthreat Assessment Report, published on August 3, 2026, INTERPOL issued an extreme warning alarm that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been put to destructive use, currently accounting for 55% of all cybercrimes reported in Africa. Between 2024 and 2025, losses due to cybercrime on the continent more than doubled, amassing from $192 million to $484 million, indicating rise of about 152.08%. The direct economic damage suffered across Africa, is estimated to have amounted to at least $5 billion in 2025 alone.
Some African countries, especially South Africa, are now at the forefront of an invisible global conflict, as cybercriminals use generative AI to automate all stages of their attacks, from target reconnaissance and tailored phishing, to data extortion and defensive evasion.
INTERPOL with other cybersecurity experts from various regions, have identified several key threatening methods that are changing the nature of digital risk, which are enabled by AI. Also, the creation of synthetic identities, is the most difficult and dangerous threat facing the continent’s digital economy. In this case, instead of stealing by using the credentials of a real person as in traditional identity theft, synthetic identity fraud builds a composite persona. In clear terms, the fraudster obtains genuine biographical details such as bank verification numbers in Nigeria or national identification numbers in South Africa, from data breaches or leaks on the dark web, and then combine them with AI-generated components, such as deepfake biometric faces or fabricated contact information to carry out impersonated transaction.
In 2024 the rates of synthetic identity fraud went up by 481% in South Africa and in Nigeria it hit 192%. Currently, Southern Africa is experiencing a severe biometric threat, because 87% of all failed biometric verification attempts in the region, are as a result of AI-assisted impersonation and spoofing. These organised syndications, take advantage of the systemic weakness of registering SIM cards in false names to open fraudulent bank accounts and obtain untraceable mobile loans.
The threat came to a peak in South Africa recently, when the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) released an urgent public alert about a deepfake video that copied both the voice and appearance of SARB Governor Lesetja Kganyago, to promote a fraudulent investment scheme. Deepfake campaigns have also affected President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, renowned business woman – Patrice Motsepe, sports star – Siya Kolisi, etc., with the aim of exploiting the public’s trust to legitimize financial scams. Over the past years, there has been an alarming 1200% upsurge in deepfake-related scams in South Africa, with the banking and fintech industries being the most affected.
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