South Africa’s current focus on external attacks by organised cybercriminals masks the fact that 95% of cybersecurity issues globally can be traced back to human error, according to sources that include the World Economic Forum.
Employees leaving Cloud databases unsecured and open to the public, misdirecting emails, losing unencrypted work devices and improperly sharing credentials are just some examples of why Surfshark’s latest quarterly analysis of global data breaches indicates that, to date, about 70 out of 100 South Africans have been affected by data breaches.
“It’s easy enough to find out that the South African government spends 0.7% of GDP on the defence of our physical borders.”
“One can get an idea of what business and government are spending annually on cybersecurity.
“Unfortunately, it’s impossible to fathom what we as a country are spending to prevent the data breaches that impact us the most on a regular basis,” notes Adriaan Venter, CEO of Cube ICT Solutions, a nationwide managed ICT services provider.
The available statistics indicate a growing and grave problem mostly centred around carelessness.
Between April 2025 and March 2026, SA’s Information Regulator received 3 219 data breach notifications. In the 2024/25 financial year, 2 374 data breach notifications were received. Reported breaches were about 1 700 in 2023.
The Regulator has previously confirmed these leaks are largely-driven by simple human error and avoidable internal system failures, rather than external cyberattacks.
“It’s definitely not all bad news,” says Venter. “The mere fact that we now have an Information Regulator that organisations are required by law to notify of data breaches is very encouraging,” he explains.
More good news is that human error originating within South Africa is infinitely more fixable than the problem of external attacks by cybercriminals.
Cube ICT Solutions provides the following top three ways to start plugging SA’s leaky data bucket:
It all starts with education. Conducting regular, mandatory security awareness training can help educate employees about handling data securely, and the risk of phishing.
Enforce least privilege access. Restrict employee access to only the specific data and systems required for their roles to minimise data accidents.
Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA). Require MFA for all applications to ensure that even if an employee mistakenly shares their password, a breach is prevented.
For individual South African consumers, the best way to help the country maintain data integrity is to keep monitoring online accounts for unusual activity on a daily basis.
Finally, keep abreast of cybersecurity news and immediately update passwords whenever you learn of significant new local data breaches.
