Cybercrime, cybersurveillance and state surveillance in South Africa
This article uses the recent cyberattack on one of South Africa’s largest financial institutions Liberty Holdings as an entry point to illustrate the challenge of cybercrime for the boardrooms of big capital in South Africa. This breach reinforces arguments raised for enhancing the state’s capacity...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2018
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| In: |
Acta criminologica
Year: 2018, Volume: 31, Issue: 3, Pages: 149-160 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Summary: | This article uses the recent cyberattack on one of South Africa’s largest financial institutions Liberty Holdings as an entry point to illustrate the challenge of cybercrime for the boardrooms of big capital in South Africa. This breach reinforces arguments raised for enhancing the state’s capacity to police cybercrime. Against this backdrop, the article reflects on the debate around the policing of cybercrime in South Africa, highlighting arguments that the way in which the state attempts to deal with this growing problem has also created fears of the emergence of a surveillance state with unfettered powers lodged in intelligence agencies. This debate has been sharpened by recent exposés of the corruption seemingly endemic to South African intelligence services, revelations that some of its leading personnel were gerrymandered to settle internal battles within the ruling African National Congress (ANC), and more shocking, the allegation that a key agency tasked with providing IT to the country’s entire public service might have been captured by one supplier. |
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| ISSN: | 1012-8093 |