The South African Weather Service (Saws) systems remain down two weeks after a cyberattack. While alternative methods are used to deliver essential services, the recovery process is ongoing. The CEO emphasizes the magnitude of the breach and the efforts to recover data and restore the network.
The South African Weather Service 's (Saws) system remains offline two weeks after cybercriminals targeted it twice in two days. Saws provided an update on the recovery process following the cybersecurity breach of its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems. Despite the hack, Saws said it continues to provide essential meteorological services such as aviation, marine and severe weather products using alternative methods pending the recovery and restoration of its ICT systems.
Saws Chief Executive Officer Ishaam Abader said the weather service’s ICT systems, which are the “bedrock” of the entity’s weather, climate, and administrative operations, remain in unscheduled downtime following a data breach. Abader said that since the breach, Saws has contacted several stakeholders, partners, and clients to advise them on its impact on service delivery. “Conversely, some stakeholders have approached the Saws to request briefings on the extent of the problem and what is being done to address it. “The expert team of external cybersecurity specialists and our own ICT technicians remain on-site to flush out the virus used by the cyber criminals to encrypt our systems and to recover our data from the backups before beginning to reopen our network.” Abader added that the recovery and restoration of the systems were taking “a little longer, given the magnitude of the breach”. He invited all stakeholders, partners, and clients facing challenges accessing critical meteorological services who have not heard from the Saws to contact the entity. Last year, IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach Report revealed that the average cost of a single data breach case in South Africa was a whopping R53.1 million in 2024. The report showed that stolen or compromised credentials were the most common initial attack vectors in South Africa, accounting for 17% of all cyberattacks. These types of attacks averaged a total cost of R56 million per breach
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