Is Hacking Legal in South Africa

One strategy of the perpetrators is to ensure that the financial loss of each victim is below a certain limit. Victims with small losses are less likely to invest time and energy in reporting such incidents to the South African police, and law enforcement agencies do not have the capacity to investigate all cybercrimes, but generally prioritize them by severity. The legal interest protected in crimes against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and computer systems is the integrity of computer information and the data itself. Based on the report, you can assess the strength of your systems to withstand hacker attacks. Not surprisingly, most people automatically assume that hackers are bad guys and hacking is bad. This is not surprising because mainstream media and cinema have historically (and unimaginatively) portrayed hackers as malicious motives or overzealous anarchists. Don`t believe me? Check out this list of piracy movies from 1954 to 2021. When you contract with an ethical hacker, you usually enter into a service contract with them. In addition to the usual legal terms of the agreement, there will be an EDT.

SOW is crucial because it defines the scope of work that the ethical hacker does for you. In other words, in the EDT, you give the ethical hacker the authority to perform an ethical hack on your network for a specific purpose. When the term hacking was originally introduced, it referred to the technique used by IT staff who were always looking for computer shortcuts that made computer tasks faster. [4] Hacking is defined as unauthorized access to a computer system, program, or data. [5] Hackers sometimes interfere with government or commercial networks to make a profit, exercise, or boast about their rights. [6] In early 2020, the data of millions of Nedbank customers was compromised when a cybercriminal infiltrated Nedbank`s service provider`s system. [7] POPIA provides for sanctions and sanctions of redress against controllers in the event of unlawful processing of personal data. POPIA is addressed to public and private entities that determine the purpose of the processing of personal data. It cannot be invoked when personal persons unlawfully access and process the personal data of others.

The provisions of the Cybercrime Act relating to piracy are quite extensive and broad. They cover different scenarios of unlawful access and processing of data, including personal data. The law defines a person as a natural or legal person. This means that the law applies to cases where legal entities illegally access the data of natural persons or other legal entities. The law also applies to cases where individuals illegally access the data of other persons or legal entities. My reasoning is that the Cybercrime Act does not list or describe ethical hacking as a cybercrime, so it is generally not a cybercrime under South African law. Leaving aside the misery surrounding Covid-19 for a moment, we can see that many exciting developments have taken place and are still taking place in the South African legislative landscape. We are 5 months away from the full effectiveness of POPIA[1].

Until July 1st of this year, companies, organizations and private and public institutions must comply with POPIA`s requirements for the processing of personal data. That`s not all. The long-awaited cybercrime law[2] is expected to be signed into law by the president every day this month. This came after a long process dating back to the introduction of the first law in 2015. The Ministry of the Interior has also published a draft directive on digital identity. [3] The policy will encourage e-government initiatives as it allows interoperability of identity management systems across departments. The Directive also focuses on the lawful processing of personal data as well as efforts to combat cybercrime, such as identity theft. This article will be part of a series of commentaries on crimes under the Cybercrime Act. This is the criminal offence of hacking or unauthorized access.

Part 2 of the article deals with the criminal offence of hacking as unlawful interception of data. But what happens if the ethical hacker oversteps this authority (in one of the phases of ethical hacking)? For example, they may hack into a network that is outside the scope of the Statement of Work. In South Africa, one of the proposed enforcement mechanisms is that of e-inspectors, who will monitor and report on illegal activities, among others. To date, no cyber inspectors have been appointed. E-inspectors have the authority (with a warrant) to inspect and search your premises, information systems or data and seize your records. But since there are no cyber inspectors, don`t expect them to arrive at the front desk with ID and a warrant! Looking at the provisions of the cybercrime law, one can see that the law applies in scenarios where people would not generally consider criminal behavior.