Cyber awareness initiatives in South Africa: a national perspective

Abstract

Cyber space, cyber awareness and cyber security play an important role in the online experience of individuals, and need to be addressed accordingly. The paper looks at some of the current cyber security awareness initiatives in South Africa, the respective scopes and methodologies of the projects, target audience and geographical areas, and interesting statistics pertaining to the specific projects. Some of the projects included in this paper are run by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the University of Fort Hare, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, and the University of Pretoria. Current initiatives cover secondary school pupils, tertiary level students, public and private sector enterprises, and senior citizens. The initiatives address general cyber security aspects, as well as more advanced topics such as social engineering and identity theft. The paper concludes by building on some of the success stories to map out a practical plan for the way forward to enforce better cyber security awareness for South African citizens. Although not exclusive, this paper provides an indication of the communities in need of cyber security initiatives in South Africa, as well as the cyber security components and topics identified as part of individual projects that need to be addressed on a national level. This paper aims to show that synergy between different South African entities can contribute to a working cyber security awareness concept that can be easily adapted to be used by countries in Africa in the area of cyber security awareness