Nigeria has suffered 23 million email account breaches since 2004 – report

Nigeria has recorded 23 million breaches in email accounts since 2004, accounting for 0.1% of total global breaches of 23 billion. This is according to a July 2025 report by Surfshark, a European VPN service and data leak detection.

According to the quarterly report, which tracks global account breaches in over 200 countries, the 23,268,560 incidents placed Nigeria in 55th position globally. The report shows the vulnerability of email accounts and how they stood among the major cyberattack targets in the last 3 decades.

Aside from the 23 million email account breach, the report noted that about 73 million other personal records of Nigerians were breached from 2004 to Q2 2025.

Among the most significant breaches affecting Nigerian users were the 3.3 billion unique email list by Addka, impacting 2,558,859 Nigerian accounts. Others are e-book platform Wattpad, which affected 1,553,032 Nigerian accounts and 1win, a betting platform, affecting 618,528 accounts. 

In this decade (2015 – 2025), Nigeria saw 12,973,853 account breaches, representing 56.5% of total breaches in 3 decades. The data means that there are 5,519 recorded cases per 100k people. Also, in the last six years (2020 – 2025), Q2 2020 (3.6 million) saw the highest attack on email accounts, followed by Q3 2024 (2.8 million).

However, Nigeria has something to smile about. The number of account breaches dropped by 73% from 119,961 recorded in Q1 2025 to 31,805 in Q2 2025. This underscores the growing effort to combat this threat. Meanwhile, it could also mean that the focus has shifted to other forms of cyberattacks, such as Ransomware. 

Notably, Surfshark noted that as many people use the same email for different accounts when registering online, a single email can be breached several times in separate incidents. On a global average, a single email address is breached around 3 times, with 94 unique email addresses breached for every 100 people, and 281 accounts breached per 100 people.

Also Read: Nigeria recorded an average of 6,101 cyberattacks weekly in July 2025.

How other African countries ranked

South Sudan tops the list in Africa with 93,250,909 email accounts breached since 2004, ranking the country 25th globally. Southern African country, South Africa, ranked 2nd in Africa and 37th globally, with a record of 42,795,233 account breaches. North Africa’s Egypt ranked 3rd in Africa and 50th globally with 25,928,441 email account breaches since 2004.

Nigeria ranked 4th in Africa and 55th globally with 23 million, while another North African country, Morocco, ranked 5th in Africa and 60th globally with 18,537,807 breaches. Notable East African countries on the list are Kenya with 7,831,072 (79th), Ethiopia recording 1,437,713 (137th), and Rwanda recording 497,579 (177th) email breaches since 2004. 

Records of other West African countries are as below:

• Côte D’Ivoire – 5,912,899 (88th)
• Ghana – 5,270,783 (93rd)
• Cameroon – 4,512,589 (97th)
• Senegal – 3,784,667 (105th)
• Mali – 1,688,339 (130th)
• Niger – 1,411,056 (139th)
• Togo – 701,719 (165th)
• Sierra Leone – 500,828 (176th)
• Liberia – 384,365 (184th)

Across the globe, the total number of breached accounts since 2004 has reached an alarming 23.1 billion. Of these, approximately 7.7 billion have unique email addresses. 

The United States topped the list with 4.4 billion breaches, followed by Russia with 3.3 billion. China saw 1.9 billion breaches, to stand 3rd on the list, followed by France with 682 million breaches. Germany is 5th with 624 million email account breaches since 2004. 

Concerns about cyberattacks 

The report has further signalled a rise in cyberattacks and the continued fight against cybercrime and other associated threats globally.

A 2025 report by Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) revealed that a staggering 131.6 million web threats were detected across Africa in 2024, underscoring the growing threats of online risks. These threats, which include malicious websites, phishing scams, and other internet-based attacks, disproportionately target businesses.

While Africa saw the highest weekly cyberattacks in July on the global stage, the Asia-Pacific continent (APAC) followed with 2,809 (6% YoY increase). Others are: Latin America recorded 2,783 attacks (4% YoY increase), Europe with 1,626 (6% YoY increase) and North America recording the least weekly cyberattacks of 1,380 (9% YoY increase).