South Africa DDoS attacks caused outages at major hosting providers, affecting thousands of businesses. Minister Solly Malatsi says govt is coordinating a response.
South Africa DDoS attacks caused widespread downtime for web hosting and internet businesses.
Major hosting providers reported disruptions, and many companies relying on them were affected.
After criticism over silence, the government said it is coordinating a response under the Cybercrimes Act.
South Africa DDoS attacks disrupted normal online services across the country over the past week. A DDoS attack is when attackers flood a server with traffic, like sending thousands of fake customers to block the door, until real users cannot get in.
Several hosting providers and related internet services experienced downtime, including xneelo and HOSTAFRICA. The report also named other local providers that saw outages. The impact spread downstream to tens of thousands of businesses that host websites, email, and applications on these platforms.
Industry stakeholders criticised the government for a slow and quiet response. One specialist said that in countries like the UK, US, or Australia, a government task team would typically issue technical advisories within 24 hours and share “indicators of compromise”, meaning fingerprints that help others detect the same attack.
Communications Minister Solly Malatsi later responded publicly. He said he is engaging with Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in the presidency, to ensure a coordinated whole-of-government approach. Malatsi pointed to the Cybercrimes Act as the legal framework, and said the mandate for that sits with Ntshavheni’s department.
Legal practitioner Samantha Moloi said South Africa has laws on paper, but lacks the practical capacity to respond quickly to national-scale cyberattacks.
Hosting outages are not just a tech problem. They can break ecommerce checkouts, customer support channels, payment confirmations, and internal tools that SMEs depend on.
The debate also highlights a wider issue for African markets, incident response, public communication, and cross-border coordination often lag behind the pace of attacks.
If South Africa builds clearer playbooks for DDoS response, information sharing, and public advisories, it could reduce downtime and limit knock-on damage for businesses in future incidents.
Primary Source: Condia
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