Kenya’s Telecom Infrastructure Faces Escalating DDoS Threat Amid Evolving Global Attack Patterns

A new global analysis of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) activity reveals that telecommunications providers in Kenya and across Africa are increasingly being targeted, even as total global attacks declined slightly by 9.5% over the last six months.

According to the latest threat-intelligence data, more than 8.06 million DDoS attacks were recorded worldwide during the reporting period, underscoring the persistent scale of the threat. Despite the overall dip in frequency, attack sophistication and concentration on critical network operators — particularly in telecoms — have intensified.

The report identifies Kenya’s major telecommunications networks among the top emerging targets in sub-Saharan Africa, with adversaries exploiting amplification vectors and network misconfigurations to disrupt mobile and broadband infrastructure. Experts note that such campaigns can overwhelm customer-facing services, degrade connectivity, and impose significant operational costs.

Globally, the largest recorded attack by throughput occurred in Germany on April 25, 2025, peaking at 1.49 million packets per second (Mpps), while the largest by bandwidth struck the Netherlands on February 24, 2025, reaching 3.12 terabits per second (Tbps). The attacks leveraged multiple amplification vectors, including CLDAP, DNS, memcached, NTP, SNMP, and SSDP, indicating highly distributed botnet coordination and automation.

Analysis of attack duration shows that more than 70% of DDoS incidents lasted under 15 minutes, suggesting a shift toward short, high-intensity bursts designed to bypass mitigation systems. Meanwhile, over 23% of attacks exceeded 1 Gbps in bandwidth, with a small but growing share surpassing 100 Gbps, capable of crippling unprotected infrastructure.

For Kenya’s telecommunications sector, this trend represents a mounting national-security and economic challenge. With telecoms forming the backbone of digital services, mobile money, and internet connectivity, targeted disruptions can ripple through financial systems, government portals, and emergency communications.

Cybersecurity specialists emphasize the need for proactive DDoS mitigation, network segmentation, and real-time monitoring, alongside public-private collaboration to strengthen resilience. As Kenya continues to digitize and expand 5G coverage, reinforcing telecom infrastructure against volumetric and multi-vector attacks will be essential to maintaining service stability and public trust.