Safaricom has reported a drop in cybersecurity incidents affecting its business customers. The number of cases has fallen by nearly 90% after the company introduced advanced security tools through its Managed Security Operations Centre (MSOC).
The revelation came at the telco’s Cybersecurity Summit 2025, themed “Powering Progress, Securing Growth”. The event brought together industry and government stakeholders to grapple with a rapidly escalating cyber-threat landscape.
According to data from Communications Authority, Kenya faced 4.6 billion cyber-threats in the second quarter of 2025 alone.
Safaricom’s Chief Corporate Security Officer, Nicholas Mulila, highlighted that the MSOC, operating 24/7 and providing real-time threat detection and response for enterprise clients, has been central to achieving this reduction.
Mulila emphasized that the days of purely reactive cybersecurity models are over. Instead, Safaricom is advocating for security to be embedded from the outset: “secure by design” and “zero-trust” architectures are now the baseline.
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He warned that despite growing sophistication in attacks, many breaches still arise from basic vulnerabilities, weak passwords, missing patches, and poor collaboration across organizations.
The government shared the same view. John Tanui, CBS Principal Secretary for the State Department for ICT and the Digital Economy, said the national cybersecurity strategy has shifted from reacting to threats to building security into every product, service and policy from the start.
He also highlighted the growing importance of newer technologies such as AI and machine learning in identifying and fighting cyber threats.
