In response to a spike in cyberattacks on Africa, a new initiative was launched to bolster critical infrastructure cybersecurity across the region.
On February 10th, 2026, a new initiative to bolster cybersecurity in Africa was launched. Resilio Africa was kicked off at an event in Lagos, Nigeria. The three-year program expands much further than Nigeria’s largest city, covering 200 critical infrastructure institutions in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, like “hospitals, clinics, schools, libraries, ICT [Information and Communication Technology] hubs, youth centers, water and sanitation boards, cultural organizations, emergency services, public media houses, and municipal systems.”
Resilio Africa, organized by the Cybersafe Foundation (a non-profit organization sharing cybersecurity skills with underserved communities) and supported by Google, is a direct response to the increased rates of cyberattacks on the continent. The 2025 Interpol Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report, with information from 43 out of 54 countries, found that “over two-thirds of INTERPOL’s African member countries surveyed have identified cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crimes as accounting for a medium to high share of all crimes.” Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana were also among the most targeted by malware in the 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index.
According to the INTERPOL report, Africa faces several challenges in addressing cybersecurity, namely uneven law enforcement capacity, fragmented legal frameworks on cybercrime, and difficulties in coordinating cross-country investigations. Just like in other regions, Africa faces rapidly evolving cyber threats. The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has made it easier for cybercriminals to commit fraud schemes at a speed that “is outpacing the capacity of many agencies to respond.”
At the Resilio Africa launch, the Executive Director of the Cybersafe Foundation, Confidence Staveley, pinned down the problem as both an escalation of malicious cyber activity and a lack of resources: “Across Africa, Critical Community Institutions are facing an increase in cyberattacks often without the capacity to defend themselves. Sub-Saharan Africa is now experiencing some of the most aggressive cyber activity globally…The conversation drops off at the point of taking action”. Staveley explained that the critical infrastructure organizations that the initiative was centered on typically weren’t able to afford sufficient cybersecurity defenses.
For each organization included in the program, Resilio Africa offers free services to help improve cybersecurity: security health checks with gap analysis and risk profiling, capacity building sessions for executives, IT teams, and general staff, real-time threat intelligence feeds, realistic phishing simulations and tabletop exercises, cyber incident response playbooks, connection to a regional cyber defense network, and one-on-one consultations with security specialists.
While the program has started only recently, Resilio Africa has already shared the outcomes they hope to achieve. In order to “strengthen entire community-service ecosystems and contribute to long-term digital resilience”, the initiative plans to train over 4,500 professionals, support more than 10,000 Critical Community Institutions, leading to a 70% reduction in critical vulnerabilities, better protection for over 15 million records, and a long-lasting functional regional cyber defense network. At the launch, Staveley shared that all of this would be done without collecting user data from the organizations that join the program. Institutions based in the covered countries are encouraged to apply to enter the initiative, as long as they meet the other requirements.
This four-country initiative is not the only recent effort to improve cybersecurity in Africa. In one week, CYSEC GLOBAL will be hosting CYSEC AFRICA in Johannesburg, South Africa, on February 26th. The conference, “Turning Cyber Threats into Africa’s Cyber Strength!”, is part of a series of meetings for addressing regional cybersecurity problems. Topics at the conference will be improving cyber resilience, defending critical infrastructure, strengthening financial and telecommunications cyber strategies, and compliance frameworks, among other pressing issues.
Head of Partnerships & Sponsorships at CYSEC GLOBAL, Ashish D. Sail, shared his excitement for the event: “We have been successfully hosting CYSEC AFRICA for quite some time now, and Johannesburg has always welcomed us with remarkable energy, leadership, and commitment to strengthening Africa’s cyber ecosystem. Each edition reinforces our belief that Africa is not only responding to cyber threats, it is building the capability to lead in cyber resilience. A strategic platform where Africa’s cyber leaders collaborate to transform emerging threats into long-term strength. By bringing together regulators, enterprises, and technology innovators, we are building a unified front to secure Africa’s digital future.”
On top of the internal collaboration driving stronger cybersecurity, African and European representatives have been working together to improve cyber policy. The first 1.5 track Dialogue on Cyber Diplomacy was held on February 3rd, 2026, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. There, representatives and experts from academia, industry, and civil society discussed how to build a recurring, long-term cyber and digital security dialogue between the European Union and Africa, strengthening confidence in the relationship between EU and African states, and finding opportunities for more collaboration.
More recently, on February 18th, 2026, the EU also held a Peace, Security and Defence Dialogue specifically with Nigeria in Brussels, Belgium. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and has one of the strongest economies on the continent, which gives the nation critical political and economic influence. The two groups had conversations about cyber threats and declared enhanced collaboration on cybersecurity as one of the key outcomes of the dialogue.
Between Resilio Africa, CYSEC AFRICA, and new dialogues between the EU and Africa, the fastest-growing continent has a lot to look forward to in the cybersecurity space.