Tech-Talk – State of Cyber-Security Threats in South Africa

In recent years, South Africa has emerged as a digital powerhouse on the African continent, but with this growth comes a significant threat, that if growing cybercrime. As cyberattacks increase in volume and sophistication, they pose a substantial risk to the nation’s economy, costing billions and affecting both businesses and individuals.

Cybercrime’s Economic Impact: Cybercrime in South Africa is not just a technological issue; it’s an economic one. The country ranks as the most targeted in Africa for ransomware and information-stealing attacks, with over 40% of ransomware incidents occurring here. The financial impact is devastating, as companies often find themselves paying ransoms to recover their data, further incentivising cybercriminals.

Business Tech Africa Spoke with Cyber Security Expert and Head of Rubrik EMEA, Richard Casey about the Cyber Crime landscape we find in South Africa in 2025:

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Key Quotes From Richard Cassidy:

Data Backups a key Target:

“And the fact that dwell time has dropped from weeks to days in the weaponisation of ransomware and backups are being targeted. It’s a standard thing now, right? And again, Rubik’s Zero Labs reports 95 % of those that we looked at of global ransomware victims said that their backups were intentionally targeted. at a scale we’ve not seen before”.

The Growing AI Threat:

“We’re also seeing a lot of ransomware attacks now through various other agencies that have taken up the mantle from those that have been taken down by FBI stings. And these newer groups that are coming to market are scaling at a level that is just not possible to do unless you’ve got some level of automation. So AI is unfortunately driving the adversarial space quite well, but it means we need to be looking at adopting it better”.

Preventative Measures a must:

“So the story is no longer … about if AI will be used in cyber attacks, it’s that it already is. African businesses, more importantly, need to assume that AI is being used against them and design strategies that are in terms of their software deployment, their capabilities, their resilience, that are enabling AI at a pace that they can also look at the attacks to defend against”.

“We can no longer build a strategy for cybersecurity and risk management. That’s about stopping everything, right? We have to now make sure that the business can survive what is going to happen inevitably. …But the real differentiator is really has to be about how quickly can you actually recover with confidence and survive the compromise”.

Greater Need of Data Sharing and Industry Cooperation
“We’ve been far too siloed in our approach to sharing intelligence into sharing those pre-indicators that are showing that some attack patterns occurring linked to a particular nation state. If only we got better at sharing when we’re seeing things”..