The South African Weather Service (SAWS) has suffered a cyber attack that resulted in its systems failing at the weekend.
The SAWS said its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems went down on the evening of Sunday, (26 January 2025), following a “security breach by criminal elements”.
In a statement on Monday, (27 January 2025), SAWS said: “Aspects of critical services including aviation and marine have been interrupted.
“In addition, the SAWS’ email system and website, which is the hub of critical weather information, have been affected.
“However, alternative ways of disseminating important information such as the weather forecasts have been put in place. “
The SAWS said ICT service providers have been on site since the attack not only to investigate the breach but also to explore both interim and long-term ways of restoring the collapsed systems and eventually services.
“In the interim, the public is advised to rely on the SAWS’ social media platforms for weather information,” the statement said.
“The SAWS is in the process of reporting the criminal act to relevant authorities.
“The attack was the second in the space of two days after the initial attempt on the evening of Saturday, 25 January 2025 failed.”
- This article was originally published by TheBulrushes. It is republished by TechFinancials under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence. Read the original article
Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $9.5 trillion in 2024, according to predictions in a report by Cybercrime Ventures. If that were measured as a country, it would be the third biggest economy in the world. Yet in the face of this dire cybersecurity threat, more than 20 countries on the African continent have not yet developed a national strategy to deal with cybersecurity (basing on the latest Global Cybersecurity Index published by the International Telecommunication Union).
Wadi Mseddi, Lead Partner – Mazars Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, notes that the research reports a shortfall of roughly four million cybersecurity professionals worldwide. “This shortfall is growing each year and has reached a point where the cybersecurity profession and expertise need to almost double immediately to be at full capacity.”
While the shortfall in cybersecurity professionals worldwide is alarming, Wadi suggests it is potentially far worse in Africa. This is due to the skills gap, increasing and more sophisticated cyber threats, digital transformation as well as regulatory compliance.
Mazars’ response to this urgent need has been the establishment of a data school in 2020 in South Africa, in the Johannesburg office, with the objective to produce data scientists at scale, primarily for the broader economy in order to assist with anomaly detection, predictive analytics, threat detection. This includes assisting its client with their digital transformation and to secure themselves against cyberattacks. In addition, a Cybersecurity Center of Excellence was established with the intent to support the development and delivery of cybersecurity services in collaboration with country offices.
