Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 29-10-2019

(Twitter: @FaizelPatel143)

Security expert and Chief Executive of J2 Software John McLoughlin says cyber-attacks is growing at a massive rate around the world and South Africa is among the top three most attacked countries in the world.

McLoughlin was commenting after the City of Johannesburg and several banks were hit by a cyber-attack.

A group of hackers, calling itself Shadow Kill Hackers, have threatened to release sensitive data if no ransom was paid by 5pm on Monday.

The city was forced to shut its website and e-services on Friday after its system was infiltrated.

McLoughlin says most organizations do not realise how big a threat a cyber-attack is.

“They speak about it, they give some lip service but not a lot else is done. The costs can be catastrophic, specifically in the smaller business. The nuts and bolts of our economy is really driven by the smaller business in any case and a successful cyber-attack can actually put them out of business.”

While the city has refused to pay the ransom, the criminals are demanding payment of four bitcoins, which is approximately R 555-thousand, or they would upload all hijacked data on to the internet.

Listen to the interview with John McLoughlin