Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Africa's cybersecurity landscape presents a paradox: a widespread belief in preparedness among organisations, although significant blind spots continue to exist, particularly concerning their human layer - their employees. The KnowBe4 Africa Human Risk Management Report 2025, drawing insights from 124 senior cybersecurity decision-makers across 30 African countries, uncovers several concerns in the continent's cyber readiness.

Ransomware attacks increased by 63% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, with a total of 276 publicly disclosed incidents, according to a new report from BlackFog. Notably, there were far more ransomware attacks that weren’t publicly disclosed. The researchers note, “The figures also reveal that the scale of hidden activity remains significant, with 80.9% of all ransomware attacks going unreported.

I’ve been following ransomware since the first one, the AIDS Cop Trojan, was released in December 1989. It locked up victim computers and asked for $300 to be sent to a Panama P.O. Box. A lot has changed since then. The invention of cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin in January 2009, was largely responsible for the explosion of ransomware by 2013. This was when CryptoLocker ransomware was released to the world. Ransomware gangs have been making many billions of dollars per year ever since.

More than one in ten people who were targeted by job scams this year fell victim, according to a report from Resume.org. Younger people, particularly young men, are more likely to fall victim. “In total, 14% of those who received a job scam text fell victim,” the report says. “Younger workers are more likely to have fallen victim to the scam. “Twenty percent of Gen Zers fell for a job scam, followed by 16% of millennials, 10% of Gen Xers, and just 4% of boomers.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued an advisory warning of job scams that impersonate well-known companies with tempting employment opportunities. The scammers are trying to steal users’ personal and financial information in order to steal their money or launch further attacks.

Scammers are using over 17,000 phony news sites to push investment fraud, according to a new report from CTM360. These websites, which the researchers call “Baiting News Sites (BNS),” spread via legitimate ad platforms such as Google or Meta. The sites impersonate well-known news providers, including CNN, the BBC, CNBC, News24, and ABC News. If a user clicks on one of these sites, they’ll be shown a fake news article about a well-known figure promoting a phony investment opportunity.

We are working tirelessly on our AI First strategy to better protect both humans and their AI tools. KnowBe4 and its advocates spend a lot of time talking to audiences about AI-enabled threats, and rightly so, as recently covered in dozens of previous posts, including this recent one. This year and next promise to be an explosion of cyber threats better enabled by AI. After years of saying AI attacks would be coming, they are here and will be the way that most cybercrime is committed forevermore.

Getting through secure email gateways (SEGs) is simply the cost of doing business for a cybercriminal. Literally, detection at the perimeter by a SEG is the same as falling at the first hurdle. SEGs have been adopted broadly, especially in larger organizations (although this picture has started to change in recent years - more on that below). Even where organizations don’t use a SEG, many native controls in email platforms (like Microsoft Exchange) operate using the same principles.

Digital connectivity is reshaping European manufacturing, driving both efficiency and innovation. However, this shift has also created a complex and vulnerable cyber threat landscape, making manufacturing the most targeted industry for cyberattacks for the past four years. Connected systems and legacy infrastructure are colliding, expanding the attack surface and exposing manufacturers to increased risks.

Researchers at Netcraft warn that AI-generated search engine summaries are suggesting phishing sites when users ask them to find legitimate login pages. The researchers tested popular AI models, asking them for the login pages of fifty major brands, and found that the models provided the wrong sites 34% of the time. "In many cases, users see AI-generated content before (or instead of) traditional search results—and often without even needing to log in," the researchers explain.