Abstract
South Africa has made great strides towards protecting critical informationinfrastructures (CIIs). For example, South Africa recognises the significance of safeguarding places or areas that are essential to the national security of South Africa or the economic and social well-being of South African citizens. For this reason South Africa has established mechanisms to assist in preserving the integrity and security of CIIs. The measures provide inter alia for the identification of CIIs; the registration of the full names, address and contact details of the CII administrators (the persons who manage CIIs); the identification of the location(s) of CIIs or their component parts; and the outlining of the general descriptions of information or data stored in CIIs.It is argued that the measures to protect CIIs in South Africa are inadequate. In particular, the measures rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to identify and classify CIIs. For this reason the South African measures are likely to lead to the adoption of a paradigm that considers every infrastructure, data or database, regardless of its significance or importance, to be key or critical.KEYWORDS: Critical databases; critical information infrastructures; nationalsecurity; social and economic well-being
Highlights
South Africa has long recognised the need to protect critical infrastructures (CIs)
This paper investigates the South African approach to safeguarding critical information infrastructure (CII) to establish whether the South African framework is comparable to those of its international counterparts
It is argued that the requirement for the regular assessment of attacks on CIIs in South Africa is analogous to the identification and verification procedure which is practised by FICA.[90]
Summary
South Africa has long recognised the need to protect critical infrastructures (CIs). For example, legislations such as the Defence Act[1] and the National Strategic Intelligence Act[2] contain measures that, amongst others, guarantee the safeguarding of CIs. Worldwide networks,[16] and the acceleration of electronic commerce (e-commerce).[17] The ease of accessing recent ICTs results in or can result in the emergence of certain risks that weaken the security and stability of the information society These include, amongst others, dishonesty, the illicit revelation of secret information, corruption, theft, deliberate disruption of the system, the destruction of ICT resources, and cyber-terrorism.[18] These risks demand that the information or data[19] recoded or kept on computers or computer software be safeguarded,[20] through the establishment of a dedicated information security structure referred to as a critical information infrastructure (CII).[21] CIIs generally form part of a country’s overall cyber-infrastructure.[22] CIIs guard the various information systems[23] or networks that, if disrupted or destroyed, could have a prejudicial or adverse impact on the health, safety, security and monetary well-being of the citizens of a country or on the effective functioning or performance of a government or economy.[24].
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