Five things SA must do to combat cybercrime

CYBERATTACKS are on the rise globally, with seriously negative implications for countries’ strategic, national, economic and social well-being.

A cyberattack can be defined as an unauthorised attempt – successful or not – to infiltrate a computer or computer system for malicious purposes.

Reasons for such attacks vary from financial gain to espionage.

The authoritative international Cybercrime Magazine expects global cybercrime costs to grow by 15% a year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion a year by 2025, reporting:

“This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.”

A 2022 report by Surfshark, the Netherlandsvirtual private network (VPN) service company, lists the top 10 countries in terms of cybercrime density. Cybercrime density is defined as the percentage of cyber victims per one million internet users.

South Africa is number six on the list, with the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and Greece taking places one to five. One reason for South Africa’s poor showing may lie in the fact that a 2020 Accenture report found the country’s internet users were inexperienced and less technically alert.

Cybercriminals are increasingly moving from targeting enterprise systems to the end users – the employees who operate computers and have access to the enterprises’ corporate data and network systems. Poor cybersecurity awareness and training of end users is one reason cyberattacks succeed in South Africa.

I am a cybersecurity expert and academic who has watched the problem of cyberattacks in South Africa and internationally over the last 30 years. In my experience, five key ingredients need to be in place in the cybersecurity ecosystem to fight cybercrime:

Fighting cybercrimes must be a governance issue

This is a core principle in all national and international good corporate governance practices. In private companies that role falls on the boards of directors and executive management. It’s part of the oversight and code of conduct of top management.

For the government, it means that the president and Cabinet should be responsible for ensuring that the country is resilient against cyberattacks.

Skilled cyber practitioners and advisers are vital

There is a dire need for cybersecurity capacity. The shortage is experienced in the government and the private sector. South Africa needs a large number of cybersecurity practitioners and advisers to help users to identify and prevent cyberattacks. These should ideally be available in all government institutions.

Citizens must be cybercrime savvy

All computer end users must be empowered to be cybercrime fighters to make the country, companies and other institutions more resilient.

Security is everyone’s job. Everyone from the entry-level to top management should know how to identify and report breaches so they can defend the enterprise. New, more effective approaches must be found to make end users more aware of cyber risks and integrate them better into the enterprise’s cyber defences.

Public-private partnership is imperative

The government cannot fight cybercapture on its own. Public-private partnerships must be established as soon as possible to combat cybercrimes. This idea is provided for in the original National Cybersecurity Policy Framework of 2013. But the political will from government to make it work seems missing and no partnerships have really developed.

Have a dedicated ‘national cybersecurity director’

Cybersecurity experts and functionaries in the government and the private sector often operate in independent silos. Nobody has the required “helicopter view” and oversight of the status of cybercrime in the country. Not sharing scarce cybersecurity expertise between role players ends up in expensive duplication of expensive software systems and training.

South Africa needs a national bureaucrat, or “national cybersecurity director” to play an oversight role. The office must act as a point of contact for all cyber-related matters. The incumbent must be skilled in cyber matters, and have the trust of the government and private sector role players. They must report to Parliament – something like chapter nine institutions, which strengthen the country’s democracy – as provided under the constitution. | The Conversation