ITWeb TV: ‘Missing’ Basics Expose Cyber Vulnerabilities
South Africa is emerging as a prime target for global cyber attacks, with a Surfshark report estimating annual cyber‑crime losses of roughly R2.2 billion (about US$118 million). Ayanda Peta, chair of the Cloud Security Alliance South Africa, warned that a lack of basic cyber‑hygiene is driving breaches across banking, insurance, education and state‑owned institutions, and that unreported incidents likely inflate the risk. He noted that JSE‑listed companies could lose up to 30% of their share value after a cyber‑attack crisis. Peta will address these challenges at the upcoming ITWeb Security Summit 2026.
Citrix Warns of Rogue AI as Enterprise Attack Surface Grows
Citrix warns that rogue AI—autonomous systems operating outside governance—poses a growing threat as enterprises expand automation and digital workspaces. The company says AI agents can bypass traditional security perimeters, increasing the attack surface and enabling faster, more sophisticated cyber‑attacks. Citrix...
AI for Service Delivery on the Horizon for COJ
Johannesburg’s executive mayor Dada Morero announced a citywide AI drive aimed at modernising service delivery and governance by 2027. The metro is executing roughly $3.8 billion in infrastructure projects, including $1.4 billion in foreign direct investment and a $284 million Microsoft data centre for...
Why Cyber Defence Is Like an Onion
Barney de Villiers, security director at payments startup Stitch, will unveil a cyber‑security adaptation of the military Survivability Onion at the Cape Town ITWeb Security Summit on 26 May 2026. The model emphasizes eliminating unnecessary systems to shrink the attack...
AI Is Already Stealing From African Musicians
AI‑generated music threatens African creators, with unlicensed models potentially siphoning up to 25% of royalties—roughly $9 billion a year. The Berlin AI Think Tank will join the Africa Rising Music Conference in Johannesburg on May 22‑23 to unveil a Creative Weight Attribution...
Security Is Like Insurance: You only Value It After the Crash
The piece underscores that the human element drives the majority of cyber incidents, with 74% of breaches linked to employee error, social engineering or stolen credentials. High‑profile attacks such as SolarWinds and the 2023 MGM Resorts ransomware—where a simple phone...
Financial Firms Warned of ‘Smarter Chaos’ with AI
Pragashani Reddy, Digital Solutions Group’s banking executive, warned that 80% of AI projects in financial firms are still pilots with no revenue impact. She urged a shift from experimentation to embedding AI as a core business capability, anchored by governance,...
ITWeb TV: Africa Must Collaborate on Cyber Deterrents
Adam Smith, the British High Commission’s cyber lead for Southern Africa, warned that Africa’s rapid digitisation is outpacing the continent’s cyber‑security safeguards. He highlighted a severe cyber‑skills gap that limits both technical defenses and policy advising. Smith stressed that state‑backed...
Gauteng’s R124m CCTV Network Stirs Political Storm
The Gauteng provincial government has invested roughly US$6.7 million to install 960 CCTV cameras across townships, business districts and schools as part of a smart‑policing push. The Democratic Alliance (DA) reports that 28% of the network—269 cameras at 89 sites—are offline...
VIDEO: GoTyme Bank: New Name, R100m Staff Deal, Big Ambitions
GoTyme Bank, formerly TymeBank, unveiled a new brand and announced ambitious growth goals, aiming for 210 million global customers through its parent Tyme Group, which already serves 21 million. The South African digital bank became the continent’s first stand‑alone digital bank to...
Google Opens Hustle Academy 2026 Registration
Google has opened registration for the 2026 Hustle Academy, a free training programme aimed at closing Africa’s AI skills gap. The revamped format features one‑day bootcamps and 60‑minute expert‑led webinars for entrepreneurs and students in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria....
Westcon-Comstor Joins Microsoft REO Programme to Boost Marketplace Sales
Westcon‑Comstor has joined Microsoft’s Resale Enabled Offers (REO) programme, enabling its channel partners to create private offers on the Microsoft Marketplace. The REO model lets Microsoft handle billing while partners retain customer relationships and access cloud‑commit budgets. Westcon says the...
Malatsi Touts LEOs for SA’s Digital Future
South Africa’s communications minister Solly Malatsi urged the fast‑track deployment of low‑Earth‑orbit (LEO) satellite services to close persistent broadband gaps, emphasizing that international operators can serve now while respecting national interests. He highlighted that Starlink remains barred for not meeting...
Wits CIO Joins Council on Higher Education Board
Wits University CIO Dr Stanley Mpofu has been appointed to the ICT Committee of Council (ICTCoC) at South Africa’s Council on Higher Education for a three‑year term. Mpofu brings over 30 years of ICT experience, having led digital transformation at Wits...
Top ICT Tenders: Home Affairs Looks to Digital Transformation
The South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has issued tender DHA04‑2026 to set up an ICT portfolio management office (PMO) that will steer its digital transformation agenda. The PMO will use Microsoft‑based tools to standardise governance, automate workflows and...
Absa’s Tech Chief Maps AI’s Future Path
Johnson Idesoh, Absa Group’s chief information and technology officer, told ITWeb’s AI Summit 2026 that the next phase of artificial intelligence will shift from generative models to autonomous, agent‑driven systems while keeping human oversight central. He highlighted Africa’s mobile‑first, youthful...
GP Legislature Flags ICT Challenges at Police Station
The Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s community safety committee flagged severe ICT and infrastructure problems at Pretoria West police station after an oversight visit. Outdated computers and unreliable network connectivity hinder case processing and access to policing systems. The station operates from...
Sanral Faces Legal Challenge over R438m SAP Tender
South Africa's National Roads Agency (Sanral) awarded a R438.3 million (~$24 million) SAP support and maintenance contract to Zimele ERP IT Services, prompting a legal challenge from rival bidder WIB Group. WIB seeks an interdict to halt Zimele’s work pending a review...
Syndicate Impersonates Old Mutual Exec Online
Old Mutual warned that a coordinated cyber‑fraud syndicate is impersonating senior executives, including COO Zureida Ebrahim, to promote fake investment opportunities. The scammers distribute the scheme across social media, messaging apps, and email, using misspelled brand names and urgent language...
Araxi Shareholders Approve Pay@ Deal
JSE‑listed fintech Araxi has secured shareholder approval to acquire an 80% stake in Pay@, South Africa’s largest independent payments‑processing platform. The transaction, cleared by competition authorities, is slated to close in May. Pay@ processed more than R60 billion (approximately $3.2 bn) in...
Wits Restores Learning Platform After Cyber Attack
The University of Witwatersrand (Wits) has restored its Ulwazi learning management system after it was taken offline by a cyber‑extortion attack linked to the ShinyHunters group. The breach originated from a vulnerability in Instructure’s Canvas platform, which affected roughly 8,800...
Computerised Testing Closes Learner Licence Loophole
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has rolled out computerised learner‑licence testing nationwide, replacing paper‑based exams. The system randomises question papers and auto‑grades, closing a long‑standing loophole where officials supplied answers in advance. Since its 2021 introduction, the national pass...
E-Hailing Overtakes Vehicle Ownership, Outpaces Fuel Spend
Discovery Bank and Visa’s SpendTrend26 report shows ride‑hailing spend in South Africa is now growing faster than fuel spend, especially among younger urban consumers. The analysis of 2.6 billion credit‑card transactions and a survey of 1,000 earners (R100,000 ≈ $5,400 annually) reveals 58%...
68% of Passwords Can Be Cracked Within a Day
Kaspersky’s analysis of 231 million leaked passwords reveals that 68 % can be cracked within a day using AI‑driven brute‑force tools. Predictable structures dominate: 53 % end with digits, 10 % use the “@” symbol, and even 15‑character passwords are broken in under a...
ITWeb TV: Blu Label Targets Lower Cell C Shareholding
Blu Label Unlimited, the majority shareholder of South Africa’s fourth‑largest mobile operator Cell C, currently owns 53.57% of the telco and plans to cut its stake to 20‑30% over the next two to three years. The group wrote down a R5.5 billion...
FPB CEO Quits Three Months After Assuming Post
Advocate Norman Gidi resigned as CEO of South Africa's Film and Publication Board (FPB) just three months after taking the post, citing a competing job offer. Communications Minister Solly Malatsi confirmed the departure and appointed Makhosazana Lindhorst as acting CEO...
Renewed Strategy Boosts GoTyme
GoTyme Bank, formerly TymeBank, has rebranded and migrated one million customers to a redesigned app in under three months. The new platform offers biometric login, free PayShap payments under R5,000 (≈ $270), a 10% savings rate and a buy‑now‑pay‑later service called...
The Invisible Engine Powering SA’s Informal Payment Revolution
South Africa’s informal economy, worth roughly R900 billion ($48 billion), is rapidly digitising as card payments outpace cash. Fintech firms such as iKhokha, Yoko and Flash have built lightweight payment solutions that now process over R20 billion ($1 billion) annually, with Flash alone handling...
70 Out of 100 South Africans Hit by Data Breaches
Surfshark’s Q1 2026 data‑breach monitor shows 70 percent of South Africans have been affected by breaches since 2004, with 45.7 million compromised accounts placing the country 38th globally and second in Africa. The most exposed data points are passwords (22.9 million) and usernames (12 million),...
Group-IB Named a Leader in the Inaugural Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cyberthreat Intelligence Technologies
Group‑IB has been named a Leader in Gartner’s inaugural 2026 Magic Quadrant for Cyberthreat Intelligence Technologies, joining only four other vendors. The accolade reflects the company’s two‑decade‑plus adversary‑centric research, its Unified Risk Platform, and unique telemetry from over 1,500 joint...
Tablets ‘Relegated in Importance’ as Demand Flatlines
Tablet shipments barely grew in Q1 2026, rising just 0.1% year‑on‑year to 37 million units, signaling a stagnant market. Apple remained the clear leader with 14.8 million iPads, up 7.9%, while Huawei and Lenovo posted the strongest gains at 28% and 20% respectively....
SASSA Grant Beneficiaries Fuel Lesaka Consumer Unit Boom
Lesaka’s consumer division, which serves South Africa’s SASSA grant recipients, posted a 41% revenue jump to roughly $33 million and an 81% surge in EBITDA to about $11 million in Q3 2026. The segment now serves over 2 million active customers, capturing a 14.6%...
Sovereignty AI: The Real Test of SA’s AI Strategy
South Africa withdrew its first draft AI policy after critics flagged fictitious references, exposing a deeper dilemma about AI sovereignty. The country must decide whether it can enforce responsible AI rules without control over critical stack layers such as energy,...
Local Ticketless Parking App Gains Traction
Admyt, a Cape Town‑based digital parking platform, now supports over 600,000 registered vehicles across roughly 90 South African malls and commercial properties. Its licence‑plate‑recognition system, powered by more than 1,200 cameras, processes over 12 million plate reads each month, eliminating tickets...
Build the Agentic SOC to Combat AI-Powered Attackers
Splunk, now a Cisco subsidiary, is urging firms to replace fragmented security tools with an AI‑powered SecOps platform that unifies SIEM, SOAR and UEBA. At the ITWeb Security Summit 2026 in Johannesburg, VP Ahmed El Saadi will detail how this integrated...
UCT Researchers Develop Multilingual AI Language Model
University of Cape Town researchers unveiled MzansiLM, a decoder‑only AI language model that supports all 11 South African official written languages. The model is built on MzansiText, a newly curated multilingual dataset, and contains 125 million parameters—smaller than most commercial LLMs...
Jobs Connect Opens Opportunities for Cape Residents
Between July 2023 and April 2026 Cape Town’s Jobs Connect platform placed 12,914 residents into jobs, including 432 graduates and 388 people with disabilities. The service also delivered education and training to 2,376 users and has attracted 170,000 total profiles since its...
Capitec Expands AWS Training to Close Critical Tech Skills Gap
Capitec Bank launched AWS Skill Builder, upskilling 568 employees in cloud competencies while expanding use of Pluralsight (2,071 learning hours) and Udemy Business (42,967 hours). The bank’s internal innovation programme, Dragons’ Den, awarded R120,000 (≈$6,500) across 93 ideas, fostering cross‑functional...
Blu Label Loses Court Bid as 1973 Law Reaches Into Digital Age
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the Companies Act of 1973 applies to modern electronic voucher transactions, rejecting Blu Label Unlimited’s attempt to retain R347,531 (about $18,000) paid to a liquidated outlet. The court held that Blu Label...
Building an Intelligent Enterprise Requires Managed Data Assets
InfoBluePrint CEO Bryn Davies warns South African enterprises that data management is now an existential requirement, not a back‑office function. Compliance with POPIA and the new King V governance code is merely the baseline; true maturity is measured by trust, interoperability...
AI only as Secure as the Information Behind It: OpenText
OpenText warns that AI-driven security is only as secure as the data it processes, emphasizing the risk of fragmented, ungoverned information. The company argues that without robust information governance, AI can magnify bias, expose sensitive content, and accelerate breach impact....
Draft Regulations Set Stage for Digital Identity in SA
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has released draft amendments to the Identification Act, proposing a voluntary digital identity system that coexists with existing physical IDs. The framework would let citizens store electronic versions of IDs, birth and marriage certificates...
Bitexen Enters SA, Expands Beyond Crypto Trading
Bitexen, a Turkey‑based digital‑asset platform with over four million users, has launched operations in South Africa after 18 months of regulatory and banking preparation. The exchange will offer tokenised real‑world assets, blockchain payments and services for financial institutions, positioning itself...
Traditional Recovery Approaches No Longer Enough
Traditional disaster‑recovery methods that rely on rolling back to the last‑known good snapshot are no longer sufficient against modern cyber attacks, according to Cohesity’s VP of Cyber Resiliency Strategy, James Blake. Attackers can remain undetected for months, meaning restored data...
3DS Authentication Under Scrutiny as E-Commerce Stakeholders Look to Break Data Deadlock
Global card networks Mastercard and Visa are tightening 3D Secure (3DS) rules, requiring merchants to send richer transaction data to issuers. Mastercard’s Essential Data Requirement for its Identity Check went live on April 1, while Visa’s Verified by Visa mandate reaches...
Kaspersky to Highlight Local Cyber Security Pain Points, Potential Solutions
Kaspersky will speak at the ITWeb Security Summit 2026 in Cape Town on May 26, focusing on the cyber‑security challenges facing South African and broader sub‑Saharan organisations. Senior researcher Omar Amin will outline global and regional threat trends, while GM...
SA Banks Prioritise Governance to Harness AI Fast
South African banks are accelerating AI adoption while emphasizing governance and ethical guardrails, according to an IBM‑hosted roundtable in Sandton. Executives highlighted AI use cases such as hyper‑personalisation, credit risk assessment, fraud detection and cyber‑security, but stressed the need for...
Microsoft and Postel: An Innovative New Data and AI-Driven Solution to Optimize Italian SMEs' Relationships with Their Customers
Microsoft, Postel (a Poste Italiane Group company) and Audiencerate have expanded their partnership to launch a Marketing Data Platform that blends AI‑powered market intelligence, first‑party data, and omnichannel activation for Italian small‑ and medium‑sized enterprises (SMEs). The solution integrates Postel’s...
Rasan Sustains Growth Trajectory in Q1 2026, Delivering Highest Ever Quarterly Revenue of SAR 261 Million, More Than Doubling Year-on-Year
Rasan Information Technology Company reported record Q1 2026 revenue of SAR 261 million (≈$70 million), a 117% increase year‑on‑year. Adjusted EBITDA surged 219% to SAR 115 million (≈$31 million), lifting the margin to 44%, while adjusted net profit rose 220% to SAR 103 million (≈$28 million)....
Stitch Adds BNPL to Payments Platform
South African payments infrastructure firm Stitch has added a buy‑now‑pay‑later (BNPL) option to its enterprise payments platform. The service, now live with merchants such as Lego, The North Face and Duck Apparel, lets shoppers split purchases into two to six...