South Africa — Cyber Threat Profile
South Africa faces a severe and escalating cyber threat landscape while enforcement capacity remains critically underfunded. In the first half of 2025, over 6 million online attack attempts and 10.3 million malware incidents were recorded, with banking trojans surging 136% and backdoor attacks up 123% compared to 2024. In 2024, cybercriminals drained ZAR 1.8 billion from bank accounts, yet South African Police recorded only 544 cyber-related fraud cases. Cell C suffered a 2-terabyte data breach in early 2024, and the National Credit Regulator was hacked in January 2026.- National CERT/CSIRT: CSHUB-CSIRT
- Data protection authority: The Information Regulator (South Africa) (source: CNIL)
- World Cybercrime Index 2024 (origin significance): 2.58 / 100, #14 worldwide
- Secure Internet servers per 1M people (2024): 16,658.2 (source: World Bank)
- Internet users (2024): 78.4% of population (source: World Bank)
Read the full analysis on IntelFusions