Technicians remain on site to flush out a virus used by cyber criminals to encrypt the South African Weather Service (SAWS) systems.
The system was hacked in January this year, SAWS announced.
SAWS also said it continues to provide essential meteorological services such as aviation, marine and severe weather products using alternative methods pending the recovery and restoration of its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems.
The SAWS’ ICT systems, which are the bedrock of the entity’s weather, climate and administrative operations, remain in an unscheduled downtime following a data breach the organisation suffered two weeks ago.
Ishaam Abader, Chief Executive Officer of the SAWS said “the expert team of external cybersecurity specialists and our own ICT technicians are trying to recover our data from the backups before beginning to reopen our network. The recovery and restoration of the systems was taking a little longer, given the magnitude of the breach.”
Abader also invited other stakeholders, partners and clients that may be experiencing challenges with access to critical meteorological services, to date, to contact the SAWS.