NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 14 – Enterprises in Kenya have been urged to tighten defenses against rising cyber threats, with new data showing that businesses are losing billions of shillings annually due to weak resilience systems.
Commvault Regional Vice President for Emerging Markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Fady Richmany, cautioned that many companies migrating to cloud services remain ill-prepared for sophisticated attacks.
The Communications Authority (CA) estimates that local firms lost at least Sh11 billion in 2023 through cyberattacks, exposing the vulnerability of businesses heavily dependent on digital platforms.
“We are here to protect our customers and to tell them be aware and be prepared because if you are not prepared for that day, the financial losses, reputation losses and impact is massive. Coming back online takes time if you are not well prepared,” Richmany said.
He added that some businesses in the region take up to three months to recover after a major attack. “Imagine you are an airline and you get attacked and it takes you two months to come back online. Who is going to fly with you?”
Industry analysts warn that as companies digitize more of their operations, they will need to invest in artificial intelligence-driven early warning systems to detect and neutralize threats.
CA data shows cyber threats surged by 201.7 percent to 2.5 billion in the third quarter of the financial year to March 2025, up from 840.9 million in the previous quarter. The authority also issued 13.2 million advisories between January and March, a 14.2 percent rise.
According to Commvault, low awareness among firms already on cloud platforms remains the biggest risk, with many assuming that hyperscale providers automatically secure their data.
Through its Shift Campaign, Commvault says it is working to strengthen resilience in Kenyan firms by deploying a unified, cloud-native system powered by Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) for faster data recovery.
