Cape Town - The Postbank suffered yet another “malicious” cyberattack in early December that impacted on social grant payments, the social development portfolio committee heard.
The bank, which is a contentious subject among ANC leaders on whether to turn it into a state bank, recently lost R77 million in a 2021 hack of its IT systems, the Cape Argus reported late last year.
The 2021 breach is suspected to have been committed by one of its contractors, Communications and Digital Technologies director-general Omega Shelembe previously told MPs.
This publication also quoted Treasury Minister as saying that the FBI had outdone the local security cluster in identifying a cyber hack of the SA Reserve Bank in October.
Expounding on the recent December attack, the bank’s project management office head Neo Moja told MPs that an external cyber security team was brought on board to assist and improve the overall IT systems.
Moja said: “In December, we started experiencing heightened and serious cyberattacks to a point where we then had to inform the industry and inform our partners in order to secure the national payment (system) of the country and to stop temporarily transactions at the ATMs to focus on this malicious activity that has been happening now (sic).”
Moja said cybercrime experts were roped in and a forensic investigation was ordered.
Although the report mentions a singular cyberattack, he said “it was coming from all angles”.
Approached for comment, Postbank spokesperson Dr Bongani Diako confirmed the attack and said their comment was bound by an ongoing investigation.
He said the attack was “detected timeously” and no Sassa beneficiaries were affected.
He said the Postbank has since moved grants payments “to a more robust” system.
The government is gearing towards transforming the Postbank into a state bank.
Ramaphosa said in his State of the Nation address that a state bank would finance small, medium and micro enterprises.
Meanwhile, a Postbank official told the social development portfolio committee MPs about issues pertaining to social grant clients who use Cashsend and Postbank.
The official said there was a backlog of about 350 000 Cashsend clients awaiting payments since August last year, while 489 837 Postbank clients were waiting for payments.
Confirmations of identity caused some of the delays.
DA MP Alexandra Marais said there was a “culture of acting positions” at Sassa which stymied the clearance of queries and hampered service delivery.