NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 10 – Kenya is calling for stronger coordination among government institutions and private sector players to tackle rising cyber threats as the country’s growing reliance on digital platforms increases exposure to attacks, data breaches and financial losses.
The government says improved collaboration, continuous threat monitoring and coordinated incident response will be critical in protecting digital infrastructure as more institutions migrate services online.
The call was made during the launch of the SecureKE Sovereign Security Operations Centre (SOC), a shared cybersecurity platform designed to help public and private sector institutions detect, investigate and respond to cyber threats.
Principal Secretary for ICT and the Digital Economy John Tanui said the expansion of digital services, including eCitizen, digital payments and cloud technologies, had increased the potential exposure of institutions to cyberattacks.
“We cannot build a digital economy without securing the infrastructure, systems and data on which it depends,” said Tanui.
“Cybersecurity is therefore not only an ICT concern. It is a national security priority, an economic imperative and a responsibility of institutional leadership.”
Tanui said cybersecurity capabilities remained uneven across institutions, with many organisations lacking the financial and technical resources to establish independent Security Operations Centres.
He averred that SecureKE would provide a shared platform integrating continuous security monitoring, artificial intelligence-supported threat detection, incident investigation, vulnerability management and coordinated response.
The model is expected to allow institutions to access specialized cybersecurity services without investing in separate security operations infrastructure.
Government says the initiative would also strengthen Kenya’s capacity to manage sensitive security operations locally, while urging government agencies to prioritize cybersecurity in institutional planning, governance and resource allocation.
Konza Technopolis Chief Executive Officer John Paul Okwiri said the center would complement investments in the Konza National Data Centre, which provides infrastructure for data hosting and cloud services.
“SecureKE complements these investments by providing continuous security monitoring, intelligent threat detection, proactive threat hunting, incident-response support, and security automation leveraging Artificial Intelligence-enabled analytics.”
Okwiri called on government ministries, departments and agencies, state corporations and private sector organisations to work with the center to strengthen their cybersecurity capabilities.
The development comes against a backdrop of growing cyber threats targeting Kenya’s government systems, cloud service providers and critical institutions.
In October 2026, the Communications Authority warned that government systems and cloud service providers were major targets of brute-force attacks, while government websites and internet service providers faced increasing web application attacks.
A November 2025 parliamentary report on the state of national security also identified the National Drought Management Authority, Kenya School of Government, the Judiciary, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Kenya Ports Authority among government institutions targeted by cybercrime, with reported incidents including data breaches and leakage of personal information.
According to the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team Coordination Centre (KE-CIRT/CC), the country recorded approximately 4.56 billion cyber threat events between October and December 2025, highlighting the pressure facing its digital infrastructure.
