Cyber resilience is the foundation for Africa’s next phase of digital growth, Mastercard whitepaper finds
Digital transformation is unlocking new growth and opportunity across Africa Building the continents cybersecurity workforce, with more than 200,000 roles unfilled at the end of 2025, is emerging as one of it’s clearest opportunities to strengthen resilience Africa’s digital economy is growing at remarkable speed, opening new opportunities for people, businesses and governments across the […]
The new Mastercard-commissioned whitepaper, Africa’s Digital Defense Race, emphasizes that building strong cyber resilience is crucial for sustaining Africa’s rapid digital economy growth. The report reveals that digital payments, mobile money, digital banking, and e-commerce have seen substantial growth between 2016 and 2025, with e-commerce alone increasing 5.3 times.
However, cyber threat activity has also surged at a similar pace, reaching 69,236 observed cyber events in 2025, with one event occurring every eight minutes. In comparison, global cyberattacks increased by only 307% during the same period. The whitepaper identifies three key sectors—technology, public sector, and financial services—as accounting for 44% of observed cyberattacks, indicating the high-value data and services these sectors hold.
The report highlights talent as the most significant opportunity for investment, with roughly 200,000 cybersecurity roles currently unfilled in Africa, representing 23% of the workforce. The Mastercard Cyber Insights Africa Cybersecurity Center of Excellence aims to bridge this gap by fostering collaboration between public and private sectors to share intelligence, knowledge, and best practices, ultimately strengthening collective defense against cyber threats.
Written by urgent.news from Daily Trust's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
