Hackers compromised 18 million Moroccan accounts since 2004
Country ranks second in North Africa, 60th worldwide in total breaches
MARRAKECH, Morocco (MNTV) — More than 18.5 million Moroccan online accounts have been compromised since 2004, placing the country 60th globally and second in North Africa for total breaches, according to new data from cybersecurity firm Surfshark.
The figure represents around 0.1 percent of all breaches recorded worldwide. The pace of attacks in Morocco is accelerating, with reported breaches rising 125 percent in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the first three months of the year.
So far this decade, Morocco has logged over 8.6 million compromised accounts — equal to 22,621 breaches for every 100,000 residents.
Major incidents included Addka’s 3.3 billion-email leak, which exposed nearly 1.8 million Moroccan accounts, followed by breaches at Wattpad (695,475 accounts) and Aptoide (158,324 accounts).
Within North Africa, Morocco trails only Egypt, which recorded 25.9 million breaches and ranks 50th globally. It leads Algeria (11.5 million, 67th), Tunisia (6.5 million, 83rd), and Libya (1.2 million, 143rd).
Globally, breaches since 2004 have reached 23.1 billion accounts, with about 7.7 billion unique email addresses exposed. Surfshark notes that a single email address is typically compromised three times on average worldwide, underscoring the dangers of reusing the same email across multiple platforms.
The report comes after a series of high-profile security incidents in Morocco this year. In April, the National Social Security Fund (CNSS) was hit by a major leak involving over one million records and thousands of sensitive payroll and identity documents.
In June, a land registry scare was traced back to the notaries’ tawtik.ma portal rather than state-owned ANCFCC systems, according to cyber regulator DGSSI.
Meanwhile, Kaspersky’s 2025 threat data identified Morocco as one of Africa’s top cyberattack targets — third for web-based threats, with 12.6 million attempts logged in 2024.
Regional patterns point to a surge in spyware (+14%), password-stealing malware (+26%), and on-device attacks (+4%), which raise the risk of account takeovers.
In response, Moroccan authorities have stepped up cybersecurity measures. The government recently launched a national Cybersecurity Innovation Center (CIC) in partnership with Mohammed V University to bolster research, training, and digital defense strategies.
Experts emphasize that while the threat environment remains high, organizations and individuals can significantly reduce risks by enforcing multi-factor authentication, keeping software and plugins updated, backing up systems, and monitoring for stolen credentials.
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