The South African Weather Service (Saws) expects its website and other IT systems to be restored in the next week, nearly a month after it was the subject of a ransomware attack.
The Saws website, which is used by ordinary South Africans for weather updates and by the aviation, agricultural and marine services sectors, went offline on Sunday, 26 January after a suspected cyberattack. The Weather Service later confirmed it was the subject of a ransomware attack.
Although a “generic ransom note” was received – reportedly from Russian-linked cybercrime group RansomHub – no specific amount has been demanded from the attackers, Saws CEO Ishaam Abader told 24-hour television news channel eNCA in an interview on Tuesday.
With its website down, Saws has made use of its social media channels – including its account on X – to share weather forecasts and aviation-related weather information. The organisation still has access to high-performance computing facilities to run its weather prediction models, Abader said.
‘A lot of work’
He said Saws’s technical experts expect the website will be back online by later this week or early next week.
“We are in the process of bringing our website up again, which is critical for the aviation sector, and a lot of work has gone into that,” he said. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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