Old security flaws expose Kenyan organisations to rising cyberattacks

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Tony Anscombe, Chief Security Evangelist at cybersecurity firm ESET.

Kenyan organisations are being targeted mostly through old, avoidable weaknesses rather than new or advanced techniques, a new report by cybersecurity firm ESET has found.

Attacks targeting a Microsoft Office weakness first identified nine years ago, known as CVE-2017-0199 (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), more than doubled in Kenya between the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026, ESET’s data shows.

The flaw allows malicious code to run when a victim opens a specially designed document. ESET says the vulnerability has been incorporated into off-the-shelf attack frameworks such as GhostX, which are sold on dark web marketplaces.