South African Airways (SAA) has become the latest organisation to fall victim to a cyber attack.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the flagship carrier of South Africa said it has been impacted by a significant cyber incident that began on Saturday, May 3.
According to SAA, the breach temporarily disrupted access to the airline’s website, mobile application and several internal operational systems, prompting swift response measures to mitigate its effects.
ITWeb reports that on Saturday, the airline took to social media to say: “SAA regrets to inform customers that we are experiencing an intermittent technical system outage affecting the SAA website and mobile app. Our teams are working on resolving the issue as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and will provide updates accordingly.”
The SAA cyber attack comes as South African organisations are increasingly targeted by cyber criminals.
Mobile operators Cell C and MTN are some of the latest victims to be hit by cyber attacks.
South Africa is the most targeted country in Africa, when it comes to infostealer and ransomware attacks, according to global cyber security company ESET’s bi-annual Threat Report. Data and expert insight collected between June and November 2024 revealed that over 40per cent of ransomware attacks and just under 35per cent of infostealer incidents on the continent occurred in South Africa.
SAA adds that, upon detection of the incident, it immediately activated its “robust” disaster management and business continuity protocols.
It notes these swift actions successfully contained the incident and minimised disruption to core flight operations.
According to the firm, the actions also ensured the continued functionality of essential customer service channels, such as the airline’s contact centres and sales offices. Normal system functionality across all affected platforms was restored later the same day, it adds.
