LARS GUMEDE

Story audio is generated using AI

In the past month, banking giant Standard Bank, the police medical Aid (PolMed), payment processor Adumo and Stats SA have all been hacked.

South Africa is in the midst of a cybersecurity crisis.

The country has the third-most cybercrime victims, according to the SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric). More than 600 cyberattacks are launched against South African businesses every hour, says Interpol. The CSIR reports that about 88% of organisations suffer between one and five cyberattacks annually and cyberincidents cost the country more than R2bn a year. What’s worse is that a new breed of AI-driven attacks has arrived. Deepfakes and other scams using AI are common.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority has repeatedly warned of deepfake scams that impersonate prominent people to trick citizens into sending money for fake investments. According to TransUnion, deepfake scams are up 1,200% from two years ago. In fact, these crimes are moving from deepfake adverts to highly personal deepfake attacks. Zoho, a cyber-research firm, has warned of WhatsApp attacks in which attackers clone a target’s voice and send fake voice notes to their loved ones to fool them into sending money.

The government is under constant cyberattack. In the first few months of this year alone, there were dozens of hacks. In March, Stats SA was hacked and 154GB of its data held to ransom of R1.7m. The Land Bank was hacked with the aggressors demanding R5.7m in Bitcoin. Standard Bank was hacked, exposing the personal information of its business clients. The latest is the Gauteng provincial government which was hacked by the group XP95, which stole 3.8TB of data belonging to 3.6-million citizens of the province.

South Africa must solve the cybersecurity crisis, which is only going to get worse with AI

Sensitive and critical organisations, which are supposed to be secure, are also constantly targeted and victimised. Eskom says it has more than 1-billion cyberattacks a month. The department of defence was hacked in 2022 by a group called Snatch which published 1.6TB of classified data online. Even the country’s most sensitive organisation, the State Security Agency, was hacked by the cyberespionage group RedNovember in 2024 in an attack that targeted multiple intelligence services around the world.

It is clear why the country has a cybersecurity crisis. There is no dedicated and well-resourced cybersecurity and intelligence organisation. Widespread awareness among people is missing. Finally, there is no dedicated national cyber talent-creation programme; we learn from other countries and implement common practice.

Given the importance of cyberspace as a domain, the top countries of the world typically have dedicated cyber-organisations that deal with cybersecurity, intelligence and warfare. In the US, the National Security Agency is its largest intelligence organisation with nearly 40,000 employees and an annual budget of $10bn. The NSA works to prevent cyberthreats to the US defence industrial base and carries out global cybersurveillance.

Cyber is so important for defence that in Israel the largest unit in the defence force, Unit 8200, is its cyber-organisation with 10,000 personnel, most aged between 18 and 21. They build high-tech systems for the IDF which are sold to the private sector, creating world-leading tech companies. As a result, Israel has the most cybersecurity companies per capita in the world and is a thriving tech hub with a third of the world’s cybersecurity unicorns (billion-dollar companies) despite making up only 0.11% of the world’s population.

Given cyberattacks rely largely on human weaknesses and mistakes, cyber as well as general digital literacy and hygiene is essential. Given this, many countries have created countrywide cybereducation campaigns. In July 2021, the Singapore Cybersecurity Agency revealed its “Better Cyber Safe Than Sorry” and “Cyber Safe Seniors Programme” campaigns. They partner educational institutions and tech companies to educate people on points such as strong passwords, recognising phishing and suspicious content, and using up-to-date software. Such programmes are the only way to stop ordinary people falling victim to cyber attacks, scams and frauds.

In such a fast moving and uncertain world, a country’s best defence is the nurturing of cyber, AI and general tech talent. In India, the CyberShiksha programme partners Microsoft to provide free training to women in small towns. The EU’s Cyber Skills Academy pools corporate and government resources for tech training. In Israel, the Talpiot programme gives specialised training for promising young talent and Israel is the only country in the world where cybersecurity can be taken as a subject for matric.

South Africa must solve the cybersecurity crisis, which is only going to get worse with AI. We must start by learning from the trends and successes around the world.