Nigeria has emerged as the 16th most breached country in the world in the third quarter of 2025, with 408,900 leaked accounts, according to a new report by cybersecurity firm Surfshark. In total, the country recorded 566,300 compromised accounts throughout the year.
Surfshark’s Senior Product Manager, Sarunas Sereika, linked the surge in cyber incidents to the growing use of artificial intelligence by hackers.
“The rise of AI tools means even small data breaches can now be exploited at scale.
“What once required high technical skills can now be automated, enabling criminals to analyse and weaponise leaked information like names and addresses for targeted attacks,” he said.
While global breach rates declined by 22.3 per cent between Q2 and Q3 2025 — from 899 to 699 accounts leaked per minute — Nigeria experienced the opposite trend. The country’s breach rate jumped tenfold, from 0.3 to 3.2 compromised accounts per minute.
Since 2004, Surfshark’s data shows Nigeria ranks third in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 23.7 million total compromised accounts.
About 7.6 million unique emails and 13.1 million passwords have been leaked, leaving over half of victims vulnerable to identity theft or extortion.
Statistically, one in ten Nigerians has been affected by a data breach.
Globally, Europe remained the most targeted region in Q3 2025, followed by North America and Asia.
One in every 2.3 breaches originated from Europe, with France alone accounting for 40 per cent.
The top ten most breached countries were France (15.5 million), Germany (10.5 million), the United States (10.5 million), India (10.2 million), Canada (4.8 million), Montenegro (3.1 million), Russia (2.9 million), the United Kingdom (2.5 million), the Netherlands (1.2 million), and Indonesia (943,700).
