Kenya records 11.12 billion cyber threats as mobile money and internet use surge

Kenya recorded more than 11.12 billion cyber threat events in the financial year ended June 30, 2026, as the country’s expanding digital economy continued to increase the number of connected devices, online services and financial transactions.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), in its Sector Statistics Report for the fourth quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year, reported 11,124,632,684 cyber threats detected by the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team/Coordination Centre (National KE-CIRT/CC).

This was a 29% increase from approximately 8.62 billion events recorded in the previous financial year.

System vulnerabilities accounted for the largest share, with 10.64 billion threat events, representing annual growth of 28.2%. These events highlight the scale of exposure associated with weaknesses in computer systems and network infrastructure.

Malware-related threats rose 64.8% to 230.31 million, while brute-force attacks, which attempt to gain access through repeated password or authentication guesses, reached 132.23 million.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) threats, which can overwhelm online services with excessive traffic, increased 114.3% to 72.16 million.

Web application attacks nearly doubled, rising 99% to 51.51 million, while mobile application attacks grew 54% to 789,826.

The National KE-CIRT/CC issued 83.10 million cyber advisories during the year, a 60.8 % increase from approximately 51.66 million in 2024/2025.

In the April-to-June 2026 quarter alone, the authority recorded 2.36 billion cyber threats and issued about 20.75 million advisories.

The increase in cyber threat events comes as mobile connectivity and digital financial services continue to expand.

According to the CA report, active mobile SIM subscriptions increased by 4.6 % to 87.99 million, equivalent to a penetration rate of 165 %.

The figure exceeds Kenya’s population because individuals and organisations can hold multiple SIM cards.

Mobile money subscriptions rose 13.2% year-on-year to 54 million, representing a penetration rate of 101.3%.

The expansion reflects the central role of mobile financial services in everyday transactions, from household payments and retail purchases to business transfers.

Safaricom retained the largest market share, accounting for 69.8%of mobile subscriptions and 88.8 per cent of mobile money subscriptions.

Airtel Networks followed with 26.8% and 11.1%t, respectively.

Total annual mobile service revenues reached Sh440.9 billion, with mobile money, roaming and bulk SMS contributing the largest combined revenue share at 42.8 per cent.

The scale of these services means that digital security is increasingly relevant to the systems used by households, businesses and financial service providers.

The CA figures, however, count detected threat events and do not establish that every event resulted in a successful breach or financial loss.

Kenya’s communications habits are also shifting from traditional text messaging towards internet-based services and higher-capacity data connections.

Traditional SMS traffic declined 0.3% to 57.1 billion messages during the year, with average monthly usage falling to 53.5 messages per subscription.

Internet-based messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, provide alternatives to conventional SMS, although the figures alone do not establish how much of the decline was caused by the shift.

Meanwhile, mobile data subscriptions increased to 64.26 million. Fourth-generation (4G) technology remained the dominant broadband platform, with 48.31 million users, while fifth-generation (5G) subscriptions reached 2.10 million.

Average monthly data consumption on 5G subscriptions rose to 64.4 gigabytes, reflecting the higher data usage associated with services such as high-resolution video streaming, downloads and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

The expansion of mobile data is occurring alongside the continued growth of digital platforms used for communication, entertainment, work and commerce.

Fixed internet subscriptions recorded further growth, rising 32.4 % year-on-year to 2.83 million connections.

Fibre-to-the-home and fibre-to-the-office services accounted for 1.56 million connections, an annual increase of 29.7%. Terrestrial wireless connections grew 42.9% to 1.03 million.

Satellite internet recorded the highest growth rate among the listed fixed internet technologies, increasing 54.4% to 27,695 connections. The category includes services such as Starlink.

The growth in fixed connections was accompanied by a 23.9% increase in utilised international internet bandwidth to 19,432.07 gigabits per second, reflecting rising demand for online services and digital content.

The CA report captures both sides of Kenya’s expanding digital environment: increased access to communications and financial services, alongside a higher volume of detected cyber threats.