South Africa is now the most-attacked country in Africa for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. NETSCOUT counted 306,661 attacks in the first half of 2026, up 78% on the second half of 2025 and 44% on the same period last year. Roughly three in four hit mobile carriers, while hosting providers saw fewer attacks that lasted far longer, averaging nearly six hours.
Why this matters to a small or mid-sized business
Most of these attacks target large networks, but the same criminals also go after the businesses that depend on them: web shops, booking systems, cloud apps and email. When a provider is under pressure, your customers feel it, and attackers increasingly use AI to make phishing and voice scams more convincing.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month: back to basics
This October, Gauteng’s e-Government department and Microsoft held a cybersecurity summit to protect government systems and residents’ data. The Awareness Month message is simple and effective: use unique passwords, switch on two-step verification, report suspicious messages, and keep software updated. Experts also say a yearly awareness talk is no longer enough; staff training should be ongoing.
What you can do this week
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for email, banking and cloud apps.
- Check that operating systems and business apps are patched, and that backups are tested and kept offline.
- Agree a simple rule for payment or banking-detail changes: confirm by phone on a known number, never from the email or message itself.
- Ask your internet and hosting providers what DDoS protection they include.
- Run a short phishing awareness session for your team.
Not sure where you stand? BlueLilly offers cybersecurity assessments and managed security monitoring, quoted to your environment. Request a security quote.
Sources: tech.africa on the NETSCOUT report; Gauteng Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2026. Featured image: original BlueLilly graphic.