Datasets:

electricsheepafrica
/

africa-crypto-incident-history

year int64 2.02k 2.03k	country_code stringclasses 4 values	sector stringclasses 3 values	category stringclasses 8 values	title stringclasses 9 values	crypto_relevance stringclasses 9 values	source stringclasses 9 values	category_label stringclasses 8 values
2,018	ZA	government	data-exposure	ViewFones / master deeds leak (60M+ records)	plaintext-at-rest; no transport crypto on exposed DB	iAfrikan / Troy Hunt 2017–18	plaintext data exposure
2,020	NG	banking	sim-swap	Wave of SIM-swap account takeovers via SS7/port-out fraud	SS7 signalling has no authentication; bypasses SMS-OTP crypto	NCC / press 2020	SIM-swap / account takeover
2,021	NG	telco	ss7	SS7 interception enabling OTP theft against mobile-money users	legacy signalling exploitation, undermines 2FA	Positive Technologies / press	SS7 signalling exploitation
2,022	KE	government	cert-outage	eCitizen / state portal TLS certificate lapses	expired/mis-configured TLS interrupting secure access	press 2022	TLS certificate failure
2,023	ZA	telco	ransomware	Major telco breach exposing subscriber data	weak segmentation; transport/at-rest crypto gaps	press 2023	ransomware / breach
2,023	NG	banking	fraud-surge	NIBSS-reported surge in electronic fraud (₦ billions)	fraud enabled by weak auth crypto / channel security	NIBSS fraud report 2023	electronic fraud surge
2,024	multiple	telco	submarine-cable	West Africa cable cuts (ACE/SAT-3/MainOne/WACS) — mass outage	single-path dependency; reroutes via foreign chokepoints	Cloudflare/press Mar 2024	submarine cable cut / reroute
2,024	multiple	telco	submarine-cable	East Africa cable cuts (EASSy/Seacom) — regional outage	rerouting exposes traffic on alternate foreign-jurisdiction paths	press 2024	submarine cable cut / reroute
2,025	NG	government	tls-config	Government subdomains observed on TLS 1.0/1.2 without FS	no forward secrecy → HNDL-exposed historical traffic	ESA DS-1 scan 2026	weak TLS configuration

Africa Cryptographic Incident History

Electric Sheep Africa · Post-Quantum Cryptographic Exposure cluster · dataset DS-6 · v0.1

African digital infrastructure is being recorded by state actors today under the assumption it will be decryptable once quantum computers arrive (2030–2035 per NIST/NCSC/ENISA). This dataset is one dimension of the Africa-specific evidence for that claim.

What this dataset answers

What does the historical record of cryptographic failure in African digital infrastructure show about systemic risk?

Key findings (v0.1)

9 sourced incidents (2018–2025) spanning telco, banking, government.
Recurring weaknesses: unauthenticated SS7 signalling enabling SIM-swap, and single foreign-routed paths exposed by cable cuts.

Files

`ds6_incidents.csv` (9 rows)

Column	Example
`year`	2018
`country_code`	ZA
`sector`	government
`category`	data-exposure
`title`	ViewFones / master deeds leak (60M+ records)
`crypto_relevance`	plaintext-at-rest; no transport crypto on exposed DB
`source`	iAfrikan / Troy Hunt 2017–18
`category_label`	plaintext data exposure

Method

A curated, sourced seed of well-documented crypto-relevant incidents (SS7/SIM-swap fraud, certificate failures, submarine cable cuts, plaintext exposure), each annotated with sector, category, cryptographic relevance, and source.

Sources

Public reporting; NIBSS fraud reports; press and CERT advisories.

Limitations

v0.1 seed. Phase-2 extends via AfricaCERT / CERT-NG advisory and CVE parsing. Not an exhaustive incident census.

How to cite

Electric Sheep Africa (2026). Africa Cryptographic Incident History (africa-crypto-incident-history). African Cryptographic Exposure & Post-Quantum Risk dataset cluster. Hugging Face. https://huggingface.co/datasets/electricsheepafrica/africa-crypto-incident-history

@dataset{esa_africa_crypto_incident_history_2026,
  title  = {Africa Cryptographic Incident History},
  author = {Electric Sheep Africa},
  year   = {2026},
  publisher = {Hugging Face},
  url    = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/electricsheepafrica/africa-crypto-incident-history}
}

Part of the cluster

This is one of eight datasets in the African Cryptographic Exposure & Post-Quantum Risk cluster by Electric Sheep Africa. The others cover TLS deployment, certificate-authority dependency, algorithm inventory, submarine cable topology, IXP/routing exposure, the regulatory gap, incident history, and PQC migration cost. See the collection on the electricsheepafrica org page.

Methodology & ethics

All collection is passive and uses public data, or standard TLS handshakes against publicly reachable endpoints (the same a browser performs). No interception, no exploitation, no private access. Figures are v0.1 and reproducible from the open collector code.