{"id":653873,"date":"2026-06-15T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=653873"},"modified":"2026-06-15T15:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:04:37","slug":"important-state-owned-company-cant-afford-to-protect-south-africa-from-cybercrime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/653873-important-state-owned-company-cant-afford-to-protect-south-africa-from-cybercrime.html","title":{"rendered":"Important state-owned company can’t afford to protect South Africa from cybercrime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) said that initiatives to upgrade its networks to better protect them against cyberattacks depended on funding from government departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said there were ongoing cyber threats targeting South Africa’s public infrastructure and government institutions, but it couldn’t address all vulnerabilities due to a lack of funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SITA is the South African government’s IT agency, a state-owned enterprise that coordinates public digital communication and technology resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tlali Tlali, head of corporate affairs at SITA, told MyBroadband that the implementation of initiatives to strengthen critical government ICT infrastructure depended on external funding and approvals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those would come from the individual government departments that SITA provided services to, as the state-owned company operated on a cost-recovery basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This meant it earns just enough from providing services to government departments to continue operating. There are no funds to deploy its own upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are ongoing modernisation initiatives aimed at improving the security posture, resilience, and performance of critical government systems,” SITA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The implementation of these initiatives is dependent on departmental approvals and associated funding.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless individual government departments direct SITA to upgrade a network to better protect it against cyberattacks and bankroll it, SITA cannot do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SITA’s feedback came after South African cybersecurity researcher Joel Cedras reported for GroundUp<\/a> that more than 5,000 known security flaws exist on SITA’s public-facing networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the 1,100 public systems belonging to government departments and entities, including municipalities and agencies to which SITA provides digital support, he identified 125 critical flaws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were flaws that typically received urgent attention because they provided an easy, low-barrier way for a cybercriminal to exploit and bypass security controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One particularly badly affected SITA-supported network serves the Amathole District Municipality in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Cedras, one of this municipality’s servers had 353 known security vulnerabilities, of which 94 were rated “critical.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fair few of the worst-performing networks in terms of vulnerabilities were owned by local municipalities, including Witzenberg and Thaba Chweu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SITA must wait for permission<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Tlali Tlali, head of corporate affairs at SITA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The quickest way to address some of these vulnerabilities was through server software updates, since many public networks run on outdated, unsupported technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larger-scale initiatives include systemic cybersecurity reviews, credential resets, training initiatives and hardware upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tlali said that SITA recently conducted a security assessment across national and provincial government departments, which highlighted areas that required immediate action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These assessments highlight areas that require remediation to improve security posture, which government departments need to prioritise and work with SITA to address,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, not all government ICT systems were supported by SITA, with Cedras indicating that the non-SITA government Internet comprised 516 systems, each often containing several vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Although secure connectivity and networks are provided by SITA, not all government systems and applications are hosted within SITA’s infrastructure,” said Tlali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Many departments host their systems in their own environments or through approved third-party service providers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these departments, however, still make use of SITA’s network services for connectivity and secure access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tlali said SITA was aware that government institutions were under constant cyber threat. As a result, it remained committed to continually improving the security posture across government networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We conduct continuous cybersecurity posture reviews to identify risks and improvement opportunities,” said Tlali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These reviews include the implementation of mitigation measures and security enhancements aimed at strengthening and securing SITA’s infrastructure against evolving cyber threats.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SITA is unable to upgrade government ICT systems to protect them against cyberattacks because it must have permission and funding from each individual department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":652845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[105885,44160,1441,15227,96073,4104,105883,4486,105884],"class_list":["post-653873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-amathole-district-municipality","tag-cyberattack","tag-cybercrime","tag-cybersecurity","tag-joel-cedras","tag-sita","tag-thaba-chweu","tag-tlali-tlali","tag-witzenberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653873"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653873"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654198,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653873\/revisions\/654198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}