New Konza centre to boost fight against cyber-attacks

By  Kabui Mwangi

Correspondent

Nation Media Group

The government has launched a cybersecurity centre at Konza Technopolis to fight threats such as hacking, ransomware and phishing from a central point.

The security operations centre will use artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor networks, detect suspicious activity and coordinate responses to cyber incidents across systems and devices.

Private companies will pay an annual fee determined by the level of assets they want monitored and protected. These assets include servers, firewalls and routers.

The launch comes as Kenya’s detected cyber threat incidents rose to 2.7 billion between July and September, according to a Communications Authority report, marking a 14.45 per cent increase on the previous quarter.

“As Kenya expands its digital economy and brings more public services online, the security of our digital infrastructure must remain a priority,” said John Paul Okwiri, the Technopolis Development Authority CEO.

“The security operations centre will strengthen our capacity to detect and respond to cyber threats while supporting a secure, resilient and trusted digital ecosystem,” he added.

The model opens access to specialised cybersecurity monitoring for businesses that may not have the resources to establish and operate their own security operations centres.

The facility will provide continuous monitoring, threat intelligence, proactive threat hunting and incident-response services, allowing participating institutions to identify vulnerabilities and respond to attacks from a central platform.

The financial consequences of cybercrime are already visible in the banking sector, where reported cyber-fraud losses rose to Sh1.9 billion in 2025, up from Sh1.59 billion in 2024.

The Central Bank of Kenya said the number of reported fraud cases increased to 385 from 353, while the amount exposed to fraud rose to Sh2.03 billion from Sh1.96 billion.

Card fraud losses more than doubled to Sh645.2 million from Sh263.3 million, while losses from internet scams jumped to Sh86.5 million from Sh6.1 million, partly offsetting a decline in mobile banking fraud losses.

The Communications Authority’s cybersecurity report identifies government among the sectors most affected by cyber-attacks, alongside internet service providers and cloud companies, with attackers targeting web applications, email systems, network devices and remote access systems.

The report also records more than 44.9 million brute-force attack attempts during the quarter, an 85.41 per cent increase, with government systems and cloud providers among the main targets.

Brute-force attacks involve repeated attempts to guess passwords or access credentials, while ransomware groups combine the disruption of computer systems with the theft of sensitive information and extortion.

The figures represent detected threat events and attempts, not successful intrusions, compromised government databases or confirmed losses.

The new Konza-based facility is part of a wider digital infrastructure build-out at the technocity, where the government has also established a national data centre to host public-sector systems and provide cloud services.

This makes cybersecurity increasingly critical as government applications and records move onto shared digital infrastructure.

ICT Principal Secretary John Tanui said the shared model would help close gaps between institutions that have invested in basic protections such as firewalls and antivirus software but lack continuous monitoring and coordinated incident response.

Kenya already has a national response structure in the National KE Computer Incident Response Team – Coordination Centre, housed at the Communications Authority, which coordinates cyber incident response and issues technical warnings around the clock.

The National Computer and Cybercrimes Coordination Committee, established under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, separately coordinates national cybersecurity matters, including threat analysis, incident response and cooperation among security agencies.

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