Ghanaian AI expert Frank Mensah bolsters cybersecurity in healthcare and mobile money – Nsemkeka
Frank Mensah, a Ghanaian expert in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, is rapidly earning international acclaim for his pioneering solutions that significantly strengthen both digital healthcare systems and mobile financial services.
His impactful work which encompasses influential academic research, enterprise software development, and frontline fraud prevention has made a great difference in Ghana and is now gaining global adoption, drawing recognition from industry leaders like MTN Ghana.
Mensah’s innovative AI-driven approaches are fortifying hospital data defences, safeguarding telemedicine privacy, and protecting mobile money networks from sophisticated fraud.
Pioneering AI security in healthcare
Mensah has authored a series of research publications examining AI’s dual role in healthcare cybersecurity.
In a 2022 study, “AI in Healthcare Cybersecurity: Balancing the Risks and Benefits of Intelligent Defence Mechanisms,” published in the International Journal of Novel Research and Development, he evaluates AI’s ability to automate threat detection and improve system resilience.
However, he also cautions against new vulnerabilities introduced by AI, such as algorithmic biases, opaque decision-making, and potential data privacy breaches.
Mensah urges a balanced strategy: “healthcare providers should leverage AI’s strengths in combating cyberattacks, but with cautious, transparent adoption and ethical safeguards to protect patient safety.” Tech analysts in Ghana note the timeliness of such insights, as local hospitals rapidly digitize records and services, making robust cybersecurity a public health priority.
Building on this, Mensah’s 2023 paper in the IJNRD, “Leveraging AI for Advanced Threat Detection: Mitigating Zero-Day Attacks in Healthcare Software Systems,” tackled one of the most pressing digital health threats: zero-day attacks.
He demonstrates how machine learning models can detect anomalous behaviour indicative of these exploits in real-time, significantly outperforming traditional signature-based defences.
While acknowledging challenges like AI “blackboxes” and resource intensity, he recommends transparent AI algorithms, staff training, and stronger regulatory frameworks, a message resonating as Ghana updates its cyber laws for the healthcare sector.
Securing digital health
Mensah’s engagement with healthcare cybersecurity extends beyond theory to practical applications.
His 2024 report, “Cybersecurity Challenges in Healthcare: A Case Study Approach to Secure Digital Health,” analysed real-world cyber incidents in hospitals to extract lessons for Ghana and other emerging markets.
The report identified critical gaps, mirroring global findings that many healthcare providers remain ill-prepared for cyber threats.
Mensah’s study highlighted issues such as inadequate device security, low staff awareness of phishing risks, and vulnerabilities from rushed telehealth rollouts during the COVID-19 era.
He distilled these into five key challenge areas, offering pragmatic solutions:
- Staff training: Regular mandatory cybersecurity trainings and simulated phishing drills.
- Outdated technology: Advocating for grants to upgrade critical software and hardware.
- Weak access controls: Urging measures like two-factor authentication and unique logins.
- Insufficient network defences: Recommending network segmentation and modern endpoint protection.
- Absence of incident response planning: Calling for developed and rehearsed protocols.
Mensah’s case-study-driven recommendations align with international best practices yet are tailored to the local context, stressing a proactive stance.
“Healthcare is going digital, and so must its security,” Mensah noted at a recent health IT forum, urging hospitals and startups to consider cybersecurity as non-negotiable infrastructure.
His thought leadership has not only educated Ghana’s tech community but also spurred regulators to consider stricter compliance standards for health data protection.
Furthermore, his latest article, “Enhancing Privacy in Telehealth Applications Through Smart Authentication Protocols,” published in the Ghana ICT Journal in November 2024, addresses privacy risks in virtual care. Mensah advocates for “smart authentication protocols”, a zero-trust approach with multi-factor and context-based verification and “privacy-by-design” in telehealth apps, including end-to-end encryption for communications.
He also urges updates to Ghana’s health regulations to specifically cover AI and digital health technologies, proposing a dedicated AI Ethics Board.
Fighting mobile money fraud with AI
Beyond healthcare, Frank Mensah has applied his AI expertise to one of Ghana’s most prevalent cybercrimes: mobile money fraud.
As mobile money (MoMo) services like MTN MoMo have become ubiquitous, fraudsters have devised sophisticated social engineering and fake notification scams. Mensah emerged as a key figure in developing advanced fraud detection algorithms to protect consumers.
Working in collaboration with MTN Ghana’s fintech and risk teams, he helped design an AI-driven monitoring system that flags suspicious activity among millions of daily MoMo transactions.
This system, leveraging machine learning models, detects typical fraud patterns such as rapid multiple withdrawals or unusual account access locations and automatically blocks or halts transactions in real-time.
MTN Ghana’s management has underscored the importance of such innovations, investing approximately US$2.5 million to strengthen its mobile money platform with AI capabilities.
These efforts have paid off: reported mobile money fraud cases in Ghana dropped from 93,000 in 2018 to about 49,000 in 2020 after stepped-up anti-fraud measures. Insiders at MTN estimate that the AI-powered safeguards, including Mensah’s implemented algorithms, now save over $5 million each year in prevented fraudulent payouts.
In late 2024, MTN Ghana honoured Frank Mensah for his outstanding contribution to fraud prevention, citing his “ingenuity in applying AI to secure our financial ecosystem.” An MTN executive remarked, “Frank’s innovative solutions have materially reduced fraud and enhanced the safety of our platform,” praising his expertise in staying ahead of sophisticated scammers.
This recognition from Ghana’s largest telecom operator solidifies Mensah’s reputation as a home-grown cybersecurity innovator, highlighting the cross-sector impact of his skills from hospitals to mobile wallets, Mensah is deploying AI for public good, saving money and thwarting criminals.
Open-source tools
Complementing his research and on-ground projects, Frank Mensah has championed knowledge-sharing by releasing open-source software tools for cybersecurity. Using the moniker “menfra” on the NuGet software repository, he has published a suite of .NET libraries that developers worldwide can use to fortify their applications.
These tools FastMonitor, Auth-Blaze, Prometheus-Monitor, and Incikit – cover critical aspects of modern cybersecurity, from intrusion detection to automated incident response.
- FastMonitor: Enforces zero-trust security for data access, rigorously verifying user permissions and logging all attempts.
- Auth-Blaze: Focuses on authentication, implementing multi-factor and context-based verification by checking user identity, device, and location for every login.
- Prometheus-Monitor: A lightweight monitoring agent that observes endpoints for unusual behavior, alerting systems to potential breaches.
- Incikit: An incident response library capable of automatically taking predefined actions when a threat is detected, such as locking accounts or quarantining malicious uploads.
By open-sourcing these tools under an MIT license, Mensah has enabled startups, financial institutions, and even government tech teams globally to strengthen their security posture at no cost.
The packages, first released in late 2024, have been downloaded by developers across Europe and Africa.
“The goal is to make advanced cybersecurity accessible,” Mensah said in an interview, noting that small companies can especially benefit. His contributions through “menfra” have garnered positive feedback, with a UK-based software engineer commenting, “FastMonitor and Auth-Blaze fill a real gap they let you implement zero-trust without reinventing the wheel.”