Southern Africa
14.3 Million South African Facebook Users Implicated by Data Breach
On April 3, Business Insider uncovered how more than 530 million Facebook users personal information had been made publicly available in an unsecured database – this included names, email addresses, and phone numbers. And now, VPN provider Surfshark has revealed that of the affected users, Egypt is the number one victim of this hack with the accounts of 45.1 million users being exposed while 14.3 million users were South African. In general, the top 10 countries by breaches make up 50% of all the breach cases – and of those cases, fewer than 10% of the profiles had their addresses exposed. On the other hand, nearly 90% of the users suffered from phone number leaks /* custom css */ .tdi_3_009.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_009.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Faceb...
Luno Records $8.3 Billion in Transactions Worldwide
Luno has recorded $8.3 billion in transactions worldwide after recently adding nearly a million new South African customers to its crypto platform. An estimated 15% of South Africans have invested in bitcoin – the second-highest percentage in the world according to the Global Web Index, beating even the USA and Japan. With over 2.1 million users in South Africa, Luno has around the same number of clients as South African Twitter users according to Statistica. It’s also the fifth most popular finance app on iPhone and third on Android – ahead of most of Africa’s biggest banks. A three-month average reveals that more than 145,000 South Africans installed the Luno app each month from November 2020 – January 2021. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_090.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_090.td-a-rec...
South Africa Halts Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
South African Health Minister, Zweli Mkhize has announced that the country would temporarily halt its Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine rollout. This follows the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) temporary suspension of the vaccine in the United States after six recipients developed a rare blood-clotting disorder. According to The New York Times, all six recipients were women aged between 18 and 48, and each of them developed the illness within one to three weeks of vaccination. “We are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” says Dr Peter Marks, FDA Director for Biologics Evaluation and Research. As it stands, no South African recipients have reported experiencing blood clots following the vaccine. However, Mkhize says that they will ...
How a Prepaid Electricity Sub-Meter can Assist with Letting Out Properties
As we reached the recent one-year anniversary of South Africans entering the first days of lockdown at the end of March 2020, we remembered how holidays at this time last year were universally cancelled because of fears of the COVID-19 virus. One year on, it is sombre to review the past 12 months, yet we are nonetheless able to start considering new opportunities for family holidays once again. We have observed the increase in domestic travel towards the end of 2020, and with the implementation of Level One restrictions, people are feeling more comfortable about potentially taking a local break. As we approach the 2021 April school holiday season for state schools (which close on Friday 23 April and reopen on Monday 3 May), many of us are preparing for a short break. Statistics have shown ...
SendSpend Launches Across Sub-Sahara Africa
Image sourced from Sara Fuerte SendSpend has officially launched its global payment system which enables the unbanked to pay online and remit money instantly to each other using only a smartphone. Simply put, millions of unbanked customers throughout Africa with an Internet connection and access to a smartphone will soon be able to use SendSpend, a payment system not restricted to a particular mobile network or financial institution. The platform, which is now available in South Africa, is entirely digital and free for consumers, who can use SendSpend within minutes of registering via a downloaded App. “SendSpend is committed to enhance and uplift the lives of people in underserved local communities. Financial inclusion is a primary focus in achieving one of the UN’s Sustainable Developmen...
MTN Ranked as Best Mobile Network in South Africa
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN has been ranked as the best mobile network in South Africa – ahead of Vodacom, rain, Telkom and Cell C – according to the latest MyBroadband Insights Mobile Network Quality Report. The report is based on 349,575 speed tests that were performed by thousands of users across the country. The research shows that South Africa had an average mobile download speed of 33.23Mbps and an average upload speed of 12.71Mbps. MTN had the highest average download speed at 64.29Mbps, followed by Vodacom on 32.76Mbps, Telkom on 27.83Mbps, Cell C on 20.82Mbps and Rain on 10.58Mbps. MTN’s exceptional performance is a result of a R50-billion infrastructure investment over the past five years to extend coverage, improve network quality, and increase...
6 Ways to Improve Your POPIA Readiness
When it comes to POPIA compliance readiness, only 30% of South African organisations believe they are well-prepared – according to the KnowBe4 online data protection survey. To make sure your company is ready, Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy and Evangelist KnowBe4 Africa, has shared six things that you can do: 1. Education and Awareness Should be a Top Priority “Education and awareness should be a top priority for organisations as we approach the POPIA deadline,” she says. “This is critical at every level of the business, from top management down to every person who works at the organisation. Everyone has to be aware of their responsibilities with regards to handling personal information and their roles when it comes to the safeguarding of personal information.” People unfortunatel...
Research Shows an Increase in Ransomware Attacks on South African Companies
South Africa is firmly in the sights of international cybercrime syndicates, who have been ramping up their attacks on local companies in the past six months – reveals cybersecurity defence, offence and protection specialist, Nclose. Martin Potgieter, Co-Founder of Nclose, says the Nview MDR team have detected a significant uptick in the number of attempts made against local customers in recent months. “We, and our colleagues in the cybersecurity sector, are seeing a surge in cybercrime activity – in particular ransomware attacks,” he says. “There has definitely been an increase in syndicates that make use of humans to launch and coordinate their attacks, they are not just relying on automated ransomware attacks.” Stephen Osler, Co-Founder at Nclose, says South African companies typical...
How Telematics is Driving eCommerce during COVID-19
If ever there was a time for the eCommerce sector to adopt telematics technology, it would be now: COVID-19 has disrupted the retail landscape, with more South Africans now choosing e-commerce as their preferred shopping channel over traditional brick-and-mortar stores. According to a Mastercard study, as much as 68% of South African consumers said they are shopping more online since the onset of the pandemic. More online shopping means that there are more deliveries to be made, and the logistics industry has had to scale operations to meet the growing demand. The various levels of lockdown, COVID-19 regulations and people working from home have created a greater reliance on home deliveries, with the industry now findi...
Ride-Hailing Platform, Bolt Now Available on Huawei App Gallery
Huawei has announced that ride-hailing platform – Bolt – is now available on its AppGallery. The service provides users with a simple, affordable, and much quicker way of reaching any destination within certain cities in South Africa. Moreover, it can help users avoid the hassle of missing an important appointment, reduce stress related to heavy traffic during peak hours, and enable a secure and contactless payment method. Huawei has also revealed that ride-hailing apps – like Bolt – are integrated within the core Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) ecosystem. They include Huawei Map and Location kit, which provides an accurate location when booking rides and location tracking, thereby offering an enhanced user experience. FNB Banking App Launches on Huawei App Gallery FNB has confirmed that its ...
Almost 50% of South Africans Will Avoid a Service Provider Following a Data Breach, Research Shows
Nearly half of South African consumers (46%) would walk away from an online service provider if it suffered any form of data breach, according to a global study by Kaspersky. The idea of avoidable data misuse is likely to incur even greater wrath from respondents, however, with 68% affirming they would no longer use the provider for fear of their data being sold to a third party in this case. As consumers understand more about businesses’ data privacy responsibilities, more transparency is needed from those companies about how they handle user data. Having to shop, be entertained, communicate and conduct business virtually is likely to have sparked heightened awareness about how much data is being offered, and what the upshots of this proliferation could be. Over two-thirds (67%) of respon...
Absa Partners with AWS to Launch Cloud Computing Skills Incubator
Image sourced from Wikiwand Absa has launched a cloud incubator initiative in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enhance its cloud computing skills across its operations in Africa. This move is part of Absa’s broader efforts to promote learning, experimentation and innovation across the organisation to enhance the banking experience for its customers. By migrating to the cloud, companies can eliminate the expense of building and managing on-site data centres while gaining the ability to reduce infrastructure costs and scale up and down rather than paying for excess on-premises capacity. “Cloud is rapidly becoming the norm for large companies, a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted a step-change in digital solutions,” says Andrew Baker, Absa ...
