The hackers are coming for Africa’s critical infrastructure

What the report says

The Independent Uganda reported that INTERPOL is warning of a growing cybercrime threat to Africa’s critical infrastructure, with electricity, telecommunications and financial systems increasingly in the crosshairs. The article centers on Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL), which the Qilin ransomware group claimed as a victim in August 2025. According to the report, the group said it had breached UETCL’s systems and obtained internal documents, while cyber-threat monitoring platforms recorded the claim the next day.

The piece says INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 places the UETCL incident in a wider pattern of attacks across the continent. INTERPOL described the episode as a suspected ransomware incident affecting monitoring systems for Uganda’s national power grid, with electricity service later restored through backup protocols. The report argues that this kind of attack matters because power utilities now rely on connected digital systems to manage physical infrastructure, creating new vulnerabilities alongside traditional risks such as vandalism.

The article also notes that UETCL’s public discussion of security in 2026 focused more on physical threats than cyber risks, even as INTERPOL urged broader attention to the digital side of infrastructure protection. It cites East Africa as a hotspot for mobile-money fraud, telecommunications attacks and infrastructure-targeted ransomware, suggesting that criminals are increasingly using cyber tools to disrupt essential services as well as steal data.