Digital fraud in Kenya becoming increasingly sophisticated, new survey reveals

Fraud in Kenya has become increasingly sophisticated, particularly in the digital space with a new survey
revealing that 58 per cent of users cited cybersecurity threats as a major barrier to adopting new digital technologies — while 38 per cent expressed concerns about identity theft.

According to the TransUnion Q2 2025 Consumer Pulse Study, data breaches (56 per cent), stolen identity (53 per cent) and credit card fraud (46 per cent) were the cyber threats that most concerned surveyed consumers.

In turn, identity attack methods that concerned consumers the most included becoming a victim of fake social media profiles (56 per cent), personal information exposed in data breaches (52 per cent), viruses or malware (44 per cent) and email phishing (44 per cent).

The survey shows that in Q2 2025, 71 per cent of respondents reported being targeted by fraud attempts through online platforms, emails, phone calls or text messages — but did not fall victim.

An additional 10 per cent said they were both targeted and scammed. Medium-income consumers were particularly affected as 77 per cent reported fraud attempts, nearly 10 percentage points higher than other income groups. The most common types of scams included vishing (fraudulent phone calls meant to trick you into revealing data) at 46 per cent, money/gift card scams at 45 per cent, phishing (fraudulent emails, websites, social posts, QR codes, etc. meant to steal data) at 40 per cent, smishing (fraudulent text messages meant to trick you into revealing data) at 39 per cent, and third-party seller scams on legitimate retail websites at 36 per cent.

At the same time, sharing personal information was a concern for 76 per cent of consumers, due to fears of privacy invasion (81 per cent) and identity theft (66 per cent). Encouragingly, the survey reveals that more than two-thirds (67 per cent) said they have appropriate access to credit information used about them.

TransUnion’s Consumer Pulse Survey of 433 adults was conducted 5–15 May 2025 by TransUnion in
partnership with third-party research provider, Dynata. Adults 18 years of age and older residing in
Kenya were surveyed using an online research panel method across a combination of desktop, mobile
and tablet devices. Survey questions were administered in English.

According to an analysis by TransUnion, 4.6 per cent of all attempted digital transactions where the consumer was located in Kenya were identified as suspected Digital Fraud in H1 2024. Kenya had the 10th highest rate of suspected Digital Fraud in the first half of 2024 out of the 19 countries and regions for which TransUnion provided regional breakdowns.

TransUnion also determined that retail, gaming, and communities (online dating, forums etc.) were the industries that had the highest suspected Digital Fraud rate for transactions where the consumer was in Kenya during the analysis period.

Some of these findings are in the TransUnion H2 2024 Update to the State of Omnichannel Fraud Report, which explores fraud trends in the first half (January 1-June 30) of this year. It found that some industries were particularly targeted, even though Digital Fraud affects many industries in Kenya.

This is at a time when 80 per cent of Kenyan consumers said in Q2 2024 that they were targeted with online, email, phone call or text messaging fraud attempts in the last three months, and of those consumers only 8 per cent reported falling victim.

“Despite the good-faith efforts that are being made by global organisations to identify and prevent fraud to date, fraudsters continue to evolve. In that sense, businesses should ensure that they are taking advantage of fraud prevention technologies such as identity verification, IP intelligence, device reputation and synthetic identity detection as critical components of their fraud prevention programmes,” said Amritha Reddy, senior director of fraud solutions at TransUnion Africa.