{"id":604864,"date":"2025-08-01T07:08:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T05:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=604864"},"modified":"2025-08-01T08:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:33:10","slug":"sabc-hacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/604864-sabc-hacked.html","title":{"rendered":"SABC hacked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has confirmed that it was the victim of a business email compromise that affected some of its staff’s email accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state-owned broadcaster’s head of communications, Mmoni Ngubane, told MyBroadband that its IT team has secured the compromised mailboxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The SABC is aware of a recent email compromise affecting a small number of employee accounts,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our IT Security team responded immediately, securing the affected mailboxes and containing the incident. Preliminary investigations indicate that the matter was isolated and quickly resolved.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ngubane said the SABC continues strengthening its cybersecurity measures and educating staff on cybersecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We encourage vigilance against suspicious emails to our staff and external partners,” she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband contacted the SABC about the business email compromise after two separate reports of suspicious emails from its domain, several days apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first email arrived on Monday, 28 July 2025, from the email address of an SABC manager for stakeholder relationships and partnerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second email arrived in our inbox on Thursday, 31 July 2025, this time from a senior executive at the public broadcaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cybercriminal groups are increasingly targeting South African state-owned entities, partially state-owned entities, and government departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025 alone, South African Airways and the National Treasury confirmed that they suffered cybersecurity incidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Treasury discovered malware<\/a> on its Infrastructure Reporting Model website in July 2025. It indicated that the issue was related to recent Microsoft SharePoint platform attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Considering recent media reports regarding security incidents affecting Microsoft’s platforms in the US, Treasury has requested Microsoft’s assistance,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entity said it had asked Microsoft to assist with identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities within its ICT environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also emphasised that, while it found malware within the Infrastructure Reporting Model system, its other systems and websites continued operating without disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partially state-owned South African Airways confirmed that it had suffered a “significant cyber incident”<\/a> that began on Saturday, 3 May 2025, and disrupted access to its website and mobile application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airline immediately activated its disaster management and business continuity protocols, which helped it successfully contain the incident and minimise disruption to core flight operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa under attack<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Communications Risk Information Centre (Comric) 2025 Telecommunications Sector Report revealed that government infrastructure faces roughly 3,312 cyberattacks weekly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also revealed that cybercrime costs South Africa about R2.2 billion each year<\/a>, and highlighted the impact of cybercrime on the country’s private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comric said the average cost of a data breach reached nearly R50 million in 2023, and according to its data, ransomware is the most common form of attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ransomware attacks typically involve attackers encrypting the victim’s data and systems and extorting them to pay for the decryption key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, recently stressed that cybercrime incidents, particularly ransomware attacks, were rising in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Comric’s report, roughly 78% of businesses in South Africa experienced at least one cybersecurity incident in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other common attacks besides ransomware include phishing scams, business email compromise, malware and exploits, and synthetic identity fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It explained that phishing scams, which see criminals attempt to coerce targets into revealing sensitive information through social engineering, cost South Africa R200 million in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other forms of attack have seen a meteoric rise in South Africa, with attacks increasing by around 153%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comric surveyed South African companies to compile its report, and 66% of respondents prioritised mitigating cyber risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisation believes that, given the increase in demand for cybersecurity solutions, the domestic cybersecurity market is expected to reach a projected revenue of R73 billion by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SABC has confirmed that it fell victim to a business email compromise that impacted some of its employees’ email accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":464039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,27],"tags":[61079,1441,100823,99415,100822,19949],"class_list":["post-604864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","category-security","tag-business-email-compromise","tag-cybercrime","tag-diedre-uren","tag-mmoni-ngubane","tag-sandile-gabuza","tag-south-african-broadcasting-corporation-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604864"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604926,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604864\/revisions\/604926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}