Kenya SIM-Swap Fraud Jumps 327%, $3.8 Million Stolen

SIM-swap fraud in Kenya surged 327% in 2025, with more than 123,000 fraudulent SIM cards used to steal an estimated $3.8 million from mobile money accounts, highlighting a sharp rise in cybercrime across East Africa, according to an INTERPOL report.

The increase reflects a broader regional trend in which criminals are increasingly targeting mobile money platforms and critical infrastructure as rapid digital adoption outpaces investment in cybersecurity, INTERPOL said in its African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026.

Kenya also recorded more than 46,786 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting telecommunications infrastructure in the first half of 2025, while the Communications Authority logged hundreds of millions of attempted cyber intrusions against government and information and communications technology systems between July and September 2025, most involving brute-force attacks and system exploitation.

INTERPOL identified East Africa as one of Africa’s fastest-growing cybercrime hotspots, with mobile money fraud and ransomware attacks emerging as the region’s two dominant threats.

Neighbouring Tanzania and Rwanda reported SIM-swap fraud patterns similar to Kenya’s, suggesting the attacks have spread across the region as telecommunications operators struggle to deploy real-time biometric verification systems quickly enough to stop account takeovers.

Uganda suffered one of East Africa’s most significant cyber incidents in August 2025 when the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Ltd experienced a suspected ransomware attack that compromised monitoring systems linked to the national power grid. Backup systems prevented electricity outages, but the incident exposed vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, the report said.

Elsewhere, the Central Bank of Seychelles suffered a customer data breach, while Ethiopia ranked fifth in Africa for internet-connected system vulnerabilities detected by cybersecurity monitoring organisation Shadowserver.

Kenya has responded by launching the “Kaa Chonjo” public awareness campaign, urging users not to share one-time passwords or personal identification numbers, while proposed amendments to the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act would strengthen law enforcement powers to tackle SIM-swap fraud and scam calls.

INTERPOL said East Africa still lacks a coordinated regional cybercrime response mechanism, allowing criminal networks to exploit differences in national jurisdictions by shifting operations across borders. It said stronger cooperation among governments, greater investment in protecting critical infrastructure and wider deployment of real-time biometric verification would be needed to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

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