Small and medium‑sized enterprises in Kenya often lack the budget and technical staff to run continuous network monitoring, investigate alerts and manage multiple security tools.

At the Safaricom Cybersecurity Summit 2026 in Nairobi, panelists highlighted that many businesses rely on cloud accounting, online payments and remote access, which increase exposure when accounts are poorly secured or software is outdated.

Managed security services (MSS) allow firms to outsource selected capabilities such as network protection, threat filtering, monitoring and incident‑response assistance, reducing the need for an internal security team.

Safaricom’s partnership with Cloudflare, announced in 2024, provides MSS packages tailored for micro, small and medium businesses, delivering protection through an established telecom provider rather than requiring each SME to assemble its own stack.

While low monthly fees make MSS attractive, owners must verify which systems are covered, who monitors alerts, response times and how business continuity is handled after a breach.

Experts advise SMEs to list critical assets, ask providers about coverage, support hours, escalation procedures and data handling, and to maintain basic safeguards such as multi‑factor authentication and regular backups.