Kenya recorded 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) 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. Mobile money subscriptions reached 54 million, a 13.2% increase over the year. The expansion reflects the central role of mobile financial services in everyday transactions, from household payments and retail purchases to business transfers.
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. Safaricom retained the largest market share, accounting for 69.8% of mobile subscriptions and 88.8 per cent of mobile money subscriptions.
Internet-based messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, are increasingly popular, while 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. Mobile data subscriptions increased to 64.26 million, with 4G technology remaining the dominant broadband platform, with 48.31 million users, while fifth-generation (5G) subscriptions reached 2.10 million.
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 growth in fixed connections was accompanied by a 23.9% increase in utilised international internet bandwidth to 19,432.07 gigabits per second.
Key points
- Kenya recorded 11.12 billion cyber threat events in the financial year ended June 30, 2026.
- Mobile money subscriptions reached 54 million, a 13.2% increase over the year.
- System vulnerabilities accounted for the largest share of cyber threats, with 10.64 billion threat events.
