The South African Weather Service (SAWS) assured the public that it is working hard to restore its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems following a cyber attack two weeks ago.
Amid the security breach, the SAWS had advised the public to use its social media platforms for weather updates.
The weather service said it has been able to provide essential meteorological services such as aviation, marine and severe weather products using alternative methods.
“The SAWS’ ICT systems, which are the bedrock of the entity’s weather, climate and administrative operations, remain in an unscheduled downtime following a data breach the organisation suffered two weeks ago,” said the organisation.
Since the breach, the SAWS has reached out to most stakeholders, partners and clients to advise them of the impact of the breach on the delivery of services.
As a result of the security breach, some media houses have issued complaints to the SAWS that they have not been receiving daily weather forecasts.
“Conversely, some stakeholders have approached the SAWS to request briefings on the extent of the problem and what is being done to address it,” said the SAWS.
CEO for the SAWS, Ishaam Abader, admitted that restoration of the weather service’s systems would take time, but a team of cybersecurity experts is on-site.
“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,” said Abader.
The Star