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You and the Cybercrimes Act

The Cybercrimes Act

The Cybercrimes Act was signed into law in South Africa on the 26th May 2021 and comes into effect the beginning of July 2021.   Complying to this law applies to both individuals and companies and non-compliance has severe consequences ranging from hefty fines to imprisonment or both!

Although Cybercrime is on the increase and the aim of the Act is to keep people safe from criminal activity, most of the Act has a negative practical impact on all organizations and individuals.

What is the impact on you?

Private Organisations (including Insurance providers, Media Houses and Direct Marketers)

  • If you do not process any data as prescribed by any law, or without the authorization of one that can do it lawfully, you could be fined or face imprisonment for up to 5 years.
  • If you access personal information unlawfully, even if it is contrary to the conditions of the POPI Act, or alternatively possess personal information that someone else acquired unlawfully, you could be fined or imprisoned for 10 years.
  • If law enforcement finds you in possession of data, like personal information, that they think was acquired unlawfully by anyone, and you cannot explain it, you could be fined or imprisoned for 5 years.
  • If you do anything with software or hardware tools that could be used to commit a Cybercrime, you could be fined or imprisoned for 10 years.
  • You must help law enforcement to catch cyber criminals at your own cost or else you could be fined or imprisoned for 2 years.
  • A court can order you to preserve any evidence at your cost.

Financial Institutions (including Banks)

  • As for the Private Organisations as well as,
  • If you become aware that a crime has been committed, you must report the offense to the SAPS and preserve any evidence in the manner prescribed by the Minister of Police at your costs.  If you do not, you could be fined R50 000.

ICT Companies (Service Providers, ISP’s, Network Operators, Vendors)

  • All the above as well as,
  • If you sell a tool that could be used to commit a cybercrime, you are probably going to have to shut down the business, as selling such a tool is a cybercrime.
  • You are going to have to initiate an extensive compliance program to ensure you process data in accordance with the law because your customers are going to look to you if they get into trouble.

Individual users of computers

  • If you send a message, via e-mail, another messenger app or on social media, that is harmful (directly or indirectly) you could be fined or imprisoned for 3 years.
  • If you have a tool ( eg an app on your phone that bypasses WiFi passwords) that could be used to commit a cybercrime, you could be fined or imprisoned for 10 years.
  • If you share your password or access code, you could be fined or imprisoned for 10 years.
  • If law enforcement finds you in possession of a password that they think you are going to use to commit a cybercrime and you cannot explain why you have it, you could be fined or imprisoned for 5 years.
  • If you commit an offence with regards to the computer system of a financial institution or the state, you will be fined more or imprisoned longer.
  • Law enforcement has extensive powers to search, access and seize your data, computer, or phone.

Parents

  • If your child is cyberbullied, you will have a better chance of getting law enforcement to help you to stop the bully.  On the flip side, if your child is accused of cyber-bullying, the consequences could be severe.
  • If someone is distributing nude pictures of your child, you will have a better change of stopping them and could get an interim order preventing anyone else from sharing the pictures online.

 

Reference: The practical impact of the Cybercrimes Act on you – Michalsons

A Decade of Technology – 2014

Continuing our 10 year anniversary celebrations, this month we take a look at 2014.

The biggest story for 2014, was the stepping down of Bill Gates as CEO of Microsoft.  His successor, Sadya Nadella took over on the 4th of February.  On April 25, the Nokia/Microsoft deal was completed, making Nokia now Microsoft Mobile in a deal totalling $7.17 billion.  On September 15, Microsoft announced that it purchased Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.

Some other noteworthy events, products and services:

  • Information on the Shellshock vulnerability was first released to developers in September.
  • The largest bug bounty was awarded, when Unix specialist Stéphane Chazelas discovered the Shell Shock vulnerability in the widely used Bash shell.
  • The FIDO Alliance released their first official specification on December 9.
  • Apple introduced the Swift programming language on June 2.
  • Android TV was released on June 25.
  • Google announced on January 13, that it had reached an agreement to acquire Nest for $3.2 billion in cash. Nest was the manufacturer of the Nest thermostats and smoke alarms.
  • On January 26, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies for $650 million.
  • Google announced on June 20, that it would acquire Dropcam, the video home monitoring company for $555 million.
  • On September 30, Google announced it would stop the Orkut social networking site.

Fun Facts:

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral in July.

On October 1, a Japanese man was sentenced to two years in prison for manufacturing 3D printed guns. He becomes the first person to serve time for a 3D printed gun.

A Decade of Technology – 2013

Continuing our 10 year anniversary celebrations, this month we take a look at 2013.

The year when Hotmail was not so hot anymore.  In February, Microsoft announced that it would be moving away from Hotmail brand and begin moving over 300 million users to the new Outlook.com e-mail service. It was also the year in which Edward Snowden began leaking classified NSA information.

Some other highlights include:

  • Yahoo! announced it would purchase Tumblr for $1.1billion on May 20th.
  • Facebook introduced Graph Search in January as it offered some users early beta access to the service. Graph Search was later released to everyone and allowed people to use natural language in the Facebook search.
  • The popularity of drones grew rapidly.
  • In May, Facebook released the first version of the React JavaScript library and React Native framework, giving developers new options when developing web applications.
  • At 23:30:26 UTC on January 25, the largest known prime number containing 17,425,170 digits was discovered by GIMPS.
  • One of the biggest cyberattacks in Internet history happened on March 29, as a massive DDoS attack targeted The Spamhaus Project.
  • On June 24, Apple announced it had no intentions of continuing to develop Safari for the PC or Microsoft Windows.
  • Google announced it would purchase Waze, a popular mobile social map application for $1.1 billion on June 11.
  • Google introduced the Chromecast on July 24.
  • IDG announced on July 10, that the August edition of PC World magazine would be the last print edition of the magazine.
  • The Furusawa group at the University of Tokyo succeeded in demonstrating complete quantum teleportation of photonic quantum bits on September 11. This achievement helped bring quantum computers even closer to reality.
  • The trojan virus Cryptolocker was discovered in September.
  • Android version 4.4 (KitKat) was released on October 31.
  • The FBI shut down the Silk Road on June 23. The Silk Road 2.0 came online on November 6.
  • Apple introduced the iPhone 5c and 5s with Touch ID and Secure Enclave on September 10.
  • Apple introduced iOS7 on September 18.
  • Microsoft discontinued Messenger in favour of Skype.

Cryptocurrencies launched in this year:

  • Ripple
  • Primecoin
  • Gridcoin
  • NXT

A Decade of Technology – 2012

Continuing our 10 year anniversary celebrations, this month we take a look at 2012.

One of the most note-worthy events of 2012 happened on 15 August when employees of Saudi Aramco noticed their computers were acting strangely. They later discovered that they are victims of the largest cyber-attack to date. The attack resulted in the data of at least 35,000 computers being partially or totally wiped out. The company’s network did not come back online until five months later.

Other highlights of a very busy year in the technology industry includes the following:

  • Computer Hope, Craigslist, Google, Reddit, Twitter, Wikipedia, and more than 115,000 other websites go dark in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) on January 18.
  • On January 4, Trident Microsystems, Inc. and Trident Microsystems Ltd., filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
  • The Julia programming language was released.
  • Google introduced Google Play on March 6.
  • Google released Google Drive, an online file storage service.
  • The first Chromebox came out on May 29.
  • Raspbian, a free operating system, was released in July.
  • Apple released macOS X Mountain Lion for desktops on July 25.
  • Apple introduced the iPad mini on October 23.
  • Tinder was introduced.
  • The Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit organization, was founded to promote Bitcoin.
  • Facebook announced its intentions of purchasing Instagram for 1 billion dollars in cash and stock in April. The deal was later finalized on September 6.
  • IPv6 – the networking standard went live in June, replacing the previous decades-old standard for allocating IP addresses on the internet for a new era of connectivity that spans an endless ecosystem of smart devices.
  • The virtual reality headset market as we know it began with Oculus.

Fun facts:

  • It wasn’t the end of the world on December 21, 2012, as the Mayans predicted but the video Gangnam Style hit over 1 billion views on YouTube.
  • In December 2012, Time magazine noted that selfie was among its the “top 10 buzzwords” of 2012.
  • The Tesla Model S changed the game for electric cars in the US. The company’s second car after the Tesla Roadster was—at $50,000—a more affordable four-seat sports sedan, which was named Motor Trend Car of the Year.

A Decade of Technology – 2011

A Decade of Technology

Continuing our 10 year anniversary celebrations, this month we take a look at 2011.

The rise of 4G networks between 2010-2011 sparked a new wave of mobile innovation. Combined with the rise of smartphones, 4G created the opportunity for apps like Spotify, Twitter, Uber,  Google Maps, Snapchat, and many more to exist and thrive.

  • The first Chromebooks with Chrome OS began shipping on June 15, 2011
  • Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies on 5 October after a long battle with cancer
  • Adobe launched Creative Cloud, marking the end of one software model and the beginning of another.
  • Amazon launches a low-cost alternative to the iPad, the Kindle Fire tablet.
  • Apple launches iMessage, enabling users to send text messages via Wi-Fi rather than by SMS.
  • Uber was founded in 2009, but the app and ride-hailing service first launched in San Francisco in 2011.

In this year smartphones and tablets grew immensely, influential tech pioneers died, cyber-security cost companies billions of dollars, and Tech trends provided new tools and created new challenges.

Join us next month to explore the highlights of 2011

A Decade of Technology – 2010

It’s 2021 and we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary. In the world of tech, a decade is a long time, and that’s an understatement. The advancements in technology are so huge, we thought we would refresh your memory by sharing some of the   highlights, starting with 2010.

2010

This was a big year for tech innovation. Some of the most iconic tech products released in this year.

  • Apple introduced the iPad on January 27, 2010.
  • On July 19, 2010, Amazon released a press release mentioning it was now selling more Kindle books (eBooks) than hardcover books.
  • Instagram was launched in October 2010.
  • Facebook introduced Facebook Messenger and Open Graph in 2010.
  • Google released Google Web Fonts, which is now known as Google Fonts.
  • Samsung introduced the Samsung Galaxy S in June 2010.
  • Apple introduced the iPhone 4 on June 24, 2010.

Mobile technology was upgraded from 3G to 4G networks.3G networks introduced a new age of calling, texting, and internet connectivity for mobile devices. 4G offered 10 times faster speed than 3G networks. To put things in perspective, this reduced the download time for an 800MB movie from 5 hours to 43 seconds. 4G enabled users to stream music and videos, shop on e-commerce sites, and use social media, all on the go.

In the age of desktop computers, social media was a log of what happened in the past i.e. a collection of experiences uploaded after the fact. As social media shift to the smartphone, however, it became an instantaneous broadcast of life experiences. And it’s not just individuals using these platforms anymore, companies, news organizations, and governments leverage them to rapidly communicate information in real time.

The number of global social media users increased from 970 million people in 2010 to 2.96 billion in 2020.

Join us next month to explore the highlights of 2011

Anon IT
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