AI has not only made work easier for organisations, but it has also added a layer of complexity when dealing with cybersecurity. Across different conversations, Jacqueline Madara, head of ICT at Machakos University, Yuki Ouchi, head of digital products and e-commerce at KFC Kenya, James Kwezi, digital transformation manager at AFR Rwanda, and Alex Siboe Wekunda, CIO at Stanbic Bank Kenya, weigh in on how AI is reshaping the threat on the other side of the firewall.
At the CITO Cybersecurity Summit held in Nairobi in July, KFC’s Yuki Ouchi shared with participants how AI was changing the face of threats the company was dealing with.
“We have had to deal with AI-generated fraud where someone goes on social media and makes posters claiming to be KFC, and people actually call and place orders. I have had customers sending me screenshots and I tell them this is not our website. But I realised that the fraudsters put our real number alongside two fake numbers,” she said.
Yuki’s experience is not isolated. Machakos University head of ICT, Jacqueline Madara warns IT leaders to be wary of AI orchestrated cyber attacks.
“When it comes to cybersecurity, you cannot handle it as a human aspect alone, and you must incorporate AI in it because currently attacks are coming in as AI bots, meaning if you do not have an AI tool to counter that, you would lose it,” she says.
James Kwezi, digital transformation manager at AFR Rwanda, is also familiar with AI cybercrime and is specific about what that shift looks like in practice, describing AI-generated phishing that no longer relies on the obvious tells people are trained to spot.
“With AI making it easier to generate convincing phishing attacks or mimic legitimate access patterns, the margin for error is shrinking fast. Some of these attacks are so sophisticated, they bypass not just filters, but human instinct. It's no longer just about suspicious grammar or dodgy links. These emails look like they came from your boss,” he says.
For Alex Siboe Wekunda,CIO at Stanbic Bank Kenya, AI's biggest impact has been on how fast and how far attacks can now travel, collapsing the distance between criminal and target.
“Now, the robber could be sitting on a beach or apartment in a far off country and all they need is a laptop,” he says, describing AI tools as making attacks 'faster, more sophisticated, and harder to trace.'
The solutions
As the threat landscape evolves, different leaders have found different ways to combat threats posed by AI.
At KFC, Yuki and her team decided to invest more in marketing and awareness to ensure that customers can spot a fake ad. At AFR Rwanda, James has adopted an approach that pairs awareness training with technical defences rather than relying on either alone.
Meanwhile, Alex's response has been architectural rather than reactive.
'We have invested heavily in a zero-trust approach. We assume nothing and verify everything, every time,' he says.
