According to a study by IBM Security, the cost of data breaches in South Africa has surged by 73% over the past 8 years, making it one of the countries with the highest data breach costs globally. The average data breach cost for South African organizations reached an all-time high of R49.45 million in 2023, an 8% increase over the last 3 years.

The financial services sector bore the brunt of data breaches, experiencing the highest average cost of R73.1 million, followed by the industrial and services sectors with R71.37 million and R58.78 million, respectively.

The report highlights that stolen or compromised credentials and phishing scams are the most common initial attack vectors, constituting 14% each of cyber threats. Attacks through compromised business emails accounted for 12%, while attacks due to cloud misconfiguration made up 11%.

AI and automation have proven to be significant factors in speeding up breach identification and containment. Organizations in South Africa that extensively used both AI and automation experienced a data breach lifecycle 95 days shorter than those without these technologies (190 days versus 285 days). However, only 28% of the studied organizations have extensively implemented security AI and automation.

Studied organizations that deployed security AI and automation extensively saved an average of nearly R10.49 million in data breach costs compared to those that did not use these technologies.

To address the growing cyber threat landscape, organizations in South Africa are urged to modernize their perimeter security strategies, implement zero-trust security solutions underpinned by AI and automation, and comply with data privacy policies like the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Early detection and fast response are crucial in reducing the impact of breaches, and investments in AI and automation can significantly enhance detection and response speeds.

South Africa leads the continent in the number of identified cybersecurity threats, with 230 million total threat detections, as reported by INTERPOL's 2022 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment report. The country also ranks third globally in the number of cybercrime victims, with an annual cost of R2.2 billion, according to research by Accenture.

Read more on TechCabal