In June 2026, organisations across Nigeria faced an average of 4,361 attempted cyberattacks every single week. That figure, published by Check Point Software, places Nigeria second in Africa for cyber threats, behind only South Africa. In the first half of this year alone, Kaspersky’s threat intelligence recorded 1.6 million web-based attack attempts targeting Nigerian internet users, with 18.4 per cent of Nigerian internet users encountering a web-based cyber threat during that six-month period. In the first quarter of 2026, approximately 281,500 Nigerian user accounts were compromised and are currently believed to be circulating on dark web marketplaces, available to anyone willing to pay for them.
These are not numbers from a distant economy with different problems. They describe the digital environment in which every Nigerian business, large or small, is operating right now.
And yet the conversation inside most Nigerian boardrooms and business offices remains remarkably calm. Cybersecurity is discussed when a breach makes the news. It attracts attention when a bank or a fintech company discloses an incident. Then the news cycle moves on, the conversation quiets, and the assumption reasserts itself that the problem belongs to someone else, to larger institutions with more data, more exposure, and therefore more reason to worry. That assumption is no longer defensible, and the data makes clear why.
