Israel has pledged to support Kenya in strengthening its fight against cybercrime as African leaders, policymakers and tech experts convene in Nairobi for Cyber Week Africa 2025.
Speaking at the opening of the conference, Israeli Ambassador to Kenya Gideon Behar said Israel stands ready to work with Kenya to bolster its digital defences and advance cybersecurity innovation across the region.
This comes at a time that the country is grappling with a sustained increase in online criminal activities, with data from the Communications Authority showing that in the past nine months to September, hacking attacks rose above 100 million breaches.
“If a country doesn’t have cybersecurity today, it cannot advance, because everything is digitalized. Cybersecurity is essential for the development and well-being of every nation. Israel stands ready to support Kenya’s vision of becoming a regional hub for digital innovation and cybersecurity excellence,” said Ambassador Behar.
He pointed to Israel’s success in building a strong cyber ecosystem driven by government leadership, academic collaboration, and private sector innovation—an approach he said could guide Kenya’s own digital transformation.
The week-long event, held under the theme “Compliance by Design: Securing Africa’s Digital Future,” brings together delegates from across the continent to explore strategies for enhancing cyber resilience.
Kenya’s ICT Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo said cybersecurity has become central to the country’s economic agenda and digital infrastructure.
“Embedding security, privacy, and accountability into the design of every digital system from inception is now a national priority,” he said.
It is hosted by the Kenya School of Government in partnership with the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, the National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee (NC4), CyberPro Global, and other partners.
The conference
comes amid rising cyberattacks targeting government and private sector systems
in Kenya, reinforcing the need for international partnerships and
capacity-building among ICT professionals.
“As an industry, we must ensure that our networks and systems are resilient and secure. As a critical provider of such networks and systems, Huawei is firmly committed to ensuring that our solutions are secure and to developing leading network security solutions,” said Huawei Kenya enterprise business managing director Samuel Cheng.
Last year, the Communications Authority of Kenya revealed that businesses and agencies hit by cybercrime in the country were forced to part with an average of $4.35 million (Sh561 million) to restore their services.
This saw the country suffer losses amounting to $83 million (Sh10.71 billion), the second highest in Africa.
Data by the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team Coordination Centre (KE-CIRT/CC), the body mandated to detect, protect, and respond to cyber threats, show that attackers are increasingly targeting national assets and financial institutions.
The Authority’s Director General, David Mugonyi, said that the most affected industries by volume of incidents and losses are financial services, government, fintech, hospitality, education, telecommunication and manufacturing.
However, despite the initiatives to stop threats from external sources, insider threats and online frauds are the leading threats.
In 2024, the total number of reported online crimes almost doubled to 3.5 billion, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2025 Economic Survey shows.
