by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – AFRICA has again emerged in the region for cyber attacks amid the rising use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) across all sectors.
The Global Threat Intelligence Report for September 2025 indicates the continent reported the highest average number of weekly cyber attacks per organisation, with 2 826 per organisation per week (an increase of 7 percent year-on-year).
It is followed by the Asia and Pacific with 2 668 (10 percent reduction YoY) with Europe registering 1 577 weekly attacks (1 percent reduction YoY), while North America stood out with a 17 percent year-over-year surge to 1 468 weekly attacks.
According to Check Point Research, telecommunications, government, and consumer goods and services led in terms of industries most targeted in Africa.
Angola was the most attacked in September, for the second month running, with 3 045 weekly attacks per organisation. Kenya suffered 3 000, Nigeria had 2 749 and South Africa 2 054.
“As Africans, we are deeply concerned about the continent’s vulnerability to cyber attacks, especially as many of the attacks in September were prompted by the use of Generative AI,” said Lorna Hardie, Regional Director: Africa, Check Point Software Technologies.
Hardie said the only sustainable defense is a prevention-first strategy powered by real-time AI, ensuring protection across the network, cloud, endpoints and identities.
“Only through this approach can organisations stay ahead and protect critical operations from relentless adversaries,” she added.
Check Point Research identified emerging risk from GenAI adoption: 1 in every 54 GenAI prompts from enterprise environments posed a high risk of sensitive data leakage, impacting 91 percent of organisations that use GenAI tools regularly.
Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Manager at Check Point Research, said September’s threat data showed while the overall volume of attacks had eased slightly, the impact and sophistication of cyber threats were intensifying.
Ransomware remains the most destructive force, while the emergence of GenAI-related data leakage adds a new dimension of risk for organisations.
“Cyber criminals will likely seek to exploit every innovation faster than users can adapt,” Dembinsky said.
– CAJ News