A new cyber threat assessment report by Interpol reveals that Ethiopia ranked 5th in Africa for digital attack vulnerability in 2025.
According to the report, Ethiopia accounts for 3.3 percent of the continent's total digital attack vulnerabilities, highlighting that the country's rapid digital transformation has outpaced its cybersecurity defenses and institutional readiness. Furthermore, over 55 percent of cybercrimes committed across Africa in 2025 were linked to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Based on data from 36 African member states and organizations like the Shadowserver Foundation, the assessment notes that Africa's direct economic losses from cybercrime reached nearly USD 5 billion, while cybersecurity spending hit USD 15.3 billion.
Financial losses across the continent more than doubled from USD 192 million to USD 484 million, and the number of victims surged from 35,000 to 87,000.
Regionally, mobile money fraud emerged as a widespread issue reported by 97 percent of African countries alongside 1.1 billion mobile subscribers.
Additionally, AI-driven digital sextortion reached around 600,000 cases across the continent, with Ethiopia accounting for 8 percent of them prompting Meta to remove 635,000 accounts from Instagram and Facebook in 2025.
Locally, Ethiopia hosts 1.36 percent of the continent's botnet nodes, with main attack vectors driven by unpatched software, exposed VPNs, and misconfigured document management systems, alongside rising threats from AI-assisted digital scams.
Interpol's assessment emphasizes that rapid technological growth has outstripped security defenses, exacerbated by inconsistent cybercrime laws and low AI readiness among law enforcement.
Systemic resource gaps remain critical: 94 percent of African nations lack adequate digital forensics tools, 78 percent suffer from severe budget and skilled personnel shortages, and 89 percent point to a lack of cross-border cooperation as a major bottleneck.
To combat these threats, Interpol has called for standardized digital forensic capabilities, strengthened cross-border collaboration, investment in law enforcement AI literacy, and the establishment of formal public-private partnerships to effectively detect, prevent, and respond to cyberattacks.
