04 March 2025

More than a third (35%) of African users of smart devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops admit to having lost money to online scams, according to a report from KnowBe4.

The ‘KnowBe4 African Cybersecurity & Awareness Report 2025’ report is based on a survey conducted in September 2024 among a sample of 800 connected device users aged 30-60 in seven African countries (Morocco, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya and Botswana).

Yet the overwhelming majority of respondents (83%) expressed confidence in their ability to recognize a security incident if they saw one. However, this high level of confidence does not appear to be well founded. 53% of respondents admitted that they did not know what ransomware was, while 37% said they had fallen for fake news or a disinformation campaign. Additionally, 32% had clicked on a phishing email and 23% had been scammed following a phone call.

This disconnect between confidence and reality on the ground highlights the critical issue of overconfidence, often linked to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which individuals overestimate their skills in areas where they lack knowledge. This can be particularly dangerous in cybersecurity, as this ‘overconfidence effect’ creates a false sense of preparedness, making individuals and organizations more vulnerable to threats they don’t fully understand or anticipate. This is especially true as cybercrimes become more sophisticated and harder to detect with the emergence of ‘fraud-as-a-service’ platforms that provide cybercriminals with tools, techniques, and resources that make it easier to execute and expand fraudulent activities.

Email phishing and voice phishing remain the primary attack vectors, while cybercriminals are exploiting various communication channels and leveraging technological advances, such as artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content, for identity theft, extortion and data theft.

The survey also highlighted a worrying trend in the ease with which African smart device users disclose their personal information. The percentage of respondents who are ‘very unlikely’ to disclose personal information has almost halved, from 29% in 2023 to 14% in 2025. 14% of respondents, 97% of whom use smartphones and 74% use laptops, are comfortable sharing personal information, with 8% saying they are likely to do so if they can get something in return, such as a discount on a purchase, and 6% saying they will share personal information at any time.

The level of understanding of using strong passwords also declined slightly, from 62% in 2023 to 58% in 2024, while understanding of multi-factor authentication remained stable at around 58%.

The report also found that the percentage of respondents saying they were ‘very concerned’ about cybercrime nearly doubled to 58% in September 2024, compared to 29% in the same month of 2023.

When asked what concerns them about cybercrime, 49% said they fear becoming a victim of online fraud and losing money, while 26% fear identity theft, 18% worry about their children and family, and 7% say they don’t understand how to protect themselves from cybercrime.