Paul Vos | Regional Managing Director | Southern Africa | Chartered Institute for Procurement & Supply (CIPS) | mail me |
Cyber risk is no longer a peripheral IT issue in African supply chains. Instead, it is becoming a core operational threat. According to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 70% of organisations report experiencing fraud or economic crime.
Cyber-enabled fraud ranks among the fastest-growing categories globally, according to the ACCA Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey.
This trend is reinforced by the INTERPOL Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2025. The report highlights a sharp rise in cybercrime, with more than two-thirds of African countries surveyed reporting cyber-enabled offences as a medium-to-high share of total crime.
Cyber-fraud in Africa is escalating
As digital procurement, mobile payments and automated supplier onboarding accelerate across African markets, experts warn that 2026 could bring a sharp escalation in cyber-fraud targeting supply chains and procurement ecosystems.
Digital transaction volumes are increasing rapidly, but governance, skills and controls are not keeping pace. The risk is not just more cybercrime. There are also more points of vulnerability across the entire supply chain.
African markets are rapidly adopting mobile-first finance and digital procurement platforms. Consequently, experts describe this trend as creating a “first-mover vulnerability”. This vulnerability arises when organisations implement digital systems faster than they embed risk management and assurance frameworks.
In practice, we see weak supplier verification, inconsistent segregation of duties and over-reliance on trust in rapidly digitising environments. Innovation has outpaced procurement discipline in many cases. This reality is contributing to growing concerns about cyber-fraud in Africa and the resilience of procurement ecosystems.
Supply chains are becoming prime targets
This gap is most visible where organisations digitise supplier onboarding, payments, and approvals but fail to secure them from end to end. While financial systems remain key targets, cybercriminals increasingly target procurement networks, supplier portals and logistics platforms. These areas often receive less protection, yet they remain linked to payments and sensitive data.
Common attack methods include business email compromise, invoice redirection fraud, fake supplier onboarding and manipulation of banking details within supplier records. Cyber risk has shifted from being an IT function issue to an ecosystem-wide procurement risk. If a supplier is compromised, the entire supply chain can be exposed.
Cyber-fraud is also increasingly surfacing through weak contractual and governance structures. In ICT, SaaS and outsourced service agreements, organisations often expose themselves through vague data security clauses, limited audit rights and unclear accountability in the event of a breach. This trend highlights why cyber-fraud in Africa has become a strategic concern rather than a purely technical issue.
Contracts and governance matter
Procurement teams are often the first line of defence if organisations equip them properly to identify risks. Contracts must be more than service agreements. They must clearly define accountability, data protection requirements and incident response obligations.
As cyber threats increase, organisations are placing greater emphasis on supplier resilience rather than technical capability alone.
A cyber-resilient vendor is defined by governance maturity, transparency, tested controls and clear incident response capability, rather than technology or size alone. Resilience is about discipline and visibility across the supplier’s ecosystem. Strong vendors can demonstrate how they manage risk, not just claim they are secure.
Procurement functions are increasingly required to integrate cyber risk into sourcing decisions alongside traditional criteria such as cost, quality and delivery. This process includes assessing supplier data protection standards, reviewing access controls, evaluating subcontractor risk and embedding cyber requirements directly into contracts.
Closing the procurement skills gap
From a professional standards perspective, we argue that this represents a fundamental shift in procurement capability. Cyber risk is now part of responsible procurement practice. It is no longer optional. It must be embedded into how we evaluate, select and manage suppliers.
The rise in cyber-fraud is also exposing a critical skills gap across procurement and supply chain teams. Many organisations still rely heavily on technical or IT-led responses instead of embedding cyber awareness within procurement itself. As a result, cyber-fraud in Africa continues to exploit weaknesses in governance and human capability.
This situation must change urgently. Procurement professionals need to recognise cyber-fraud indicators, challenge supplier claims and understand where vulnerabilities exist in their own processes.
In conclusion
Organisations are urged to strengthen cyber resilience across procurement ecosystems now. This includes tighter supplier onboarding, stronger payment change controls, clearer contracts and cyber-awareness training for procurement teams.
The required shift is both structural and cultural. Cyber resilience is no longer about isolated controls. It is about building capability across the entire supply chain. The organisations that succeed will be those that treat cyber risk as a core part of procurement excellence.