The Sofitel Abidjan Hôtel Ivoire hosted the KNext conference on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. Kaspersky experts presented an uncompromising assessment of the regional digital threat, illustrated by large-scale operations such as PassiveNeuron.

One of the major alerts concerns the Triada Trojan. Initially a simple advertising program, it has mutated into a formidable structure on Android, capable of intercepting banking transactions and siphoning private SMS messages. This trend is exacerbated by the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by groups like FunkSec, which automate phishing and create large-scale multifunctional malware.

Pascal Naudin, B2B Director for West and Central Africa, structured these threats into three major categories during this conference, while providing concrete figures on invisible risks. The first type of attack is ransomware, whose total impact is estimated at 1.4 billion FCFA, including 500 million FCFA solely for business interruption. Next is data leakage, which generates an overall cost of 1.07 billion FCFA, distributed among incident notifications, loss of reputation, communication and crisis management, and regulatory sanctions amounting to 440 million FCFA. Finally, internal fraud represents a financial risk of 580 million FCFA, a large part of which concerns loss of reputation and clientele, directly impacting the GDP by 1.5%.

At KNext Abidjan 2026, Kaspersky shared these analyses, emphasizing the concrete evolutions of operating modes and the challenges related to access security. Through this initiative, the company reaffirms its commitment to supporting African organizations in understanding and managing cyber threats.