The government has launched a cybersecurity centre at Konza Technopolis to combat hacking, ransomware and phishing through centralised monitoring and response.
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.
Government institutions are enrolling in the service, while private companies will pay an annual fee based on the assets they want monitored and protected.
These include servers, firewalls and routers, with charges varying according to the scale of infra-structure supported by the centre.
The launch comes as detected cyber threat incidents in Kenya rose to 2.7 billion between July and September 2026, a 14.45 percent increase from the preceding quarter.
The financial toll of cybercrime is also evident in the banking sector, where reported cyber-fraud losses rose to Sh1.9 billion in 2025, from Sh1.59 billion in 2024.
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said 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. These increases partly offset a decline in mobile banking fraud losses.
“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, Konza Technopolis Development Authority chief executive.
“The security operations centre will strengthen our capacity to detect and respond to cyber threats while supporting a secure, resilient and trusted digital ecosystem.”
The shared model gives businesses access to specialised cybersecurity monitoring without having to establish and operate their own security operations centres, which can be costly.
The facility will offer continuous monitoring, threat intelligence, proactive threat hunting and incident response, enabling participating institutions to identify vulnerabilities and respond to attacks through a central platform.
The Communications Authority of Kenya’s latest cybersecurity report identifies government institutions among the sectors most affected, alongside internet service providers and cloud companies. Attackers are targeting web applications, email systems, network devices and remote access systems.
The report also recorded more than 44.9 million brute-force attack attempts during the three months, an 85.41 percent 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 disrupt computer systems, steal sensitive information and demand payment.
The figures represent detected threat events and attempts, not successful intrusions, compromised government databases or confirmed financial losses.
The Konza facility is part of a wider digital infrastructure expansion at the technopolis, where the government has also established a national data centre to host public-sector systems and provide cloud services.
