Cybercriminals across Africa have shifted from using Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a supporting tool to relying on it as the central driver of operations, according to the INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026.

The report states that “2025 marked the definitive transition from AI as a supporting tool to AI as the core operational driver of cybercrime in Africa.”

It found that 55% of cybercrime cases recorded in 2025 involved AI, with 47% using it occasionally and 8% frequently.

AI is now used to automate every stage of the attack lifecycle — from reconnaissance and phishing to extortion and evasion.

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Deepfake‑related incidents rose sevenfold across the continent between late 2024, including a case in Uganda where a fake video of a public figure was used to promote a fraudulent investment scheme, causing losses of more than USD 2 million.

The report also flagged a new ransomware strain, PromptLock, which uses generative AI to autonomously write, adapt, and execute malicious code — a level of customization previously only possible through human labour.

Despite the scale of the shift, INTERPOL found law enforcement’s response lagging. 92% of agencies cited lack of technical expertise as the main barrier to adopting AI tools, while only 8% of intelligence analysts had advanced AI expertise.

“Cyber‑criminality has evolved from isolated incidents into an industrialized, borderless ecosystem,” Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of Cybercrime said.

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