Cybercrime: SA Postbank loses over R18m in three months

The South African Postbank is to spend R400 million over the next three years to upgrade and modernise its IT systems.

This is after the state-owned entity lost more than R18 million over a three-month period to cybercrime attacks.

On Tuesday, Postbank chief executive Lucas Ndala told parliament’s portfolio committee on communications that it had “a number of cyberfraud incidents – most of them relating to the SA Social Security Agency beneficiary grant payment system”.

Three separate incidents

He said the accounts of 141 grant beneficiaries were hit in a cyberattack in August. The state-owned entity lost R5.8 million in this incident.

September

The second incident happened in September. Postbank lost about R4 million in this incident.

October

In October 2022, Ndala said the Postbank banking system had another cybercrime attack and lost about R9 million.

This year, it was revealed that Postbank lost R90 million in cybercrime attacks in October 2021.

Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani, acting director-general in the department of communications and digital technology, said: “There needs to be consequence management because these are public funds.”

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