The growing incidence of online fraud is putting public confidence in Ghana’s rapidly expanding digital financial system at risk, the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) has warned.
The CSA says online fraud accounted for nearly half of all cybersecurity incidents recorded in Ghana during the first seven months of 2026, highlighting the increasing exposure of individuals and businesses as digital financial services expand.
Director-General of the CSA, Divine Selase Agbeti, said the national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-GH) recorded 3,876 cybersecurity incidents between January and July, of which 1,818, representing 47 per cent, were linked to online fraud.
Speaking at the launch of the 2026 National Cyber Security Awareness Month in Accra, Mr Agbeti said the figures demonstrated the urgent need for stronger protection of Ghana’s digital economy.
He warned that continued attacks on mobile money wallets, bank accounts, online merchants and personal data could erode the trust that underpins digital financial services.
Mr Agbeti also cited the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 Fraud Report, which recorded a 48 per cent increase in reported fraud cases across banks, specialised deposit-taking institutions and payment service providers, from 16,733 cases in 2024 to 24,778 in 2025.
The reported cases placed about GH¢101 million at risk.
According to the CSA Director-General, the scale of the threat means cybersecurity can no longer be treated as an issue solely for information technology departments or as a regulatory requirement.
He urged financial institutions and other businesses to elevate cybersecurity to board-level governance and make it part of their overall approach to operational resilience.
“Cybersecurity cannot remain a compliance exercise done solely for the regulator or a technology project delegated solely to the IT department,” he said.
Mr Agbeti called for stronger security measures, including multi-factor authentication, improved identity management, regular vulnerability assessments and more effective incident-response systems.
He further warned that the emergence of artificial intelligence was giving fraudsters new tools to make scams more convincing, particularly through voice cloning, impersonation and sophisticated social engineering techniques.
He urged institutions to strengthen their systems before attacks occur rather than waiting until customers suffered losses.
“No institution should wait to become a victim before taking cybersecurity seriously,” he said.
Mr Agbeti stressed that the future of Ghana’s digital finance sector would depend not only on how quickly new technologies were adopted, but also on whether they could be deployed securely.
He said protecting customers and maintaining trust must therefore remain central to Ghana’s digital transformation agenda.
