Nigerian organisations recorded the highest number of cyber-attacks in Africa in January 2026, averaging 4,701 attacks per organisation per week, according to the latest Global Threat Intelligence Report by Check Point Research.
The figure represents a 12 percent year-on-year increase and a rise from 4,622 weekly attacks recorded in December 2025, underscoring mounting cyber pressure on Africa’s largest economy.
According to the report, Nigeria led the continent in attack volume among the four African countries surveyed and significantly exceeded the continental average of 2,864 attacks per organisation per week.
Globally, organisations faced an average of 2,090 cyber-attacks per week in January, a 3 percent increase from December and a 17 percent rise year-on-year.
Within Africa, Angola ranked second behind Nigeria with 4,512 attacks per organisation per week, although this marked a 7 percent year-on-year decline. Kenya recorded 2,172 weekly attacks, down 41 percent, while South Africa saw 2,145 weekly attacks, representing a 36 percent increase from the same period last year.
The report noted that Government, Financial Services, and Consumer Goods and Services were the most targeted sectors across Africa.
Ian van Rensburg, Head of Security Engineering for Africa at Check Point Software Technologies, said the data reflects growing scale and sophistication in cyber threats.
“January’s data shows that cyber-attacks are not only increasing but becoming more refined and opportunistic,” he said, urging organisations undergoing digital transformation to strengthen cybersecurity frameworks.
The report also flagged rising risks linked to Generative AI adoption. It found that one in every 30 GenAI prompts submitted from corporate networks in January posed a significant risk of exposing sensitive data, affecting 93 percent of organisations using such tools.
Prompts frequently included internal documents, customer information, personal identifiers and proprietary source code. On average, organisations used 10 different GenAI tools monthly, often outside formal governance structures, increasing the likelihood of data leaks and AI-enabled attacks.
Globally, the Education sector remained the most targeted industry, facing an average of 4,364 weekly attacks per organisation, followed by Government and Telecommunications.
