ASSOCIATION NEWS
News snippets from around the world digital security, health security, infrastructure, personal security, as well as environmental security, a new category for this year. https://edition.cnn.com
NUMSA announces October strike
The Department of Justice hack — all backups gone and R33 million ransom demanded The hackers who attacked the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s (DOJandCD) systems earlier this month also managed to encrypt all of its backups and have demanded a 50 bitcoin (R33,234,450) ransom. MyBroadband received information from an IT company that consulted with the department, which the DOJandCD brought in to attempt to recover control of the compromised systems. According to the source, the attack resulted in the encryption of ‘everything, including the backups’, which they could not recover. The consulting IT company advised the Department of Justice to pay the ransom and budget for a cloud backup system. Based on their initial investigation, the company believes that the attackers may have entered the system as early as April this year. https://mybroadband.co.za
We saved more than 58‚000 jobs despite budget cuts and increased demand‚ CCMA says The Commission for Conciliation‚
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Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) says it was able to save 58‚165 of 138‚816 jobs that were likely to be lost to retrenchment in the 2020/2021 financial year‚ despite fiscal challenges brought about by Covid-19. The Commission has been kept busy as record numbers of workers approached it over labour disputes amid a jobs bloodbath‚ it said in its annual report released last Tuesday. Chairperson Enos Ngutshane said it was a challenging year‚ more so because they could not implement their five-year strategy as a result of Covid-19 and accompanying regulations. www.sowetanlive.co.za
The ‘world’s safest city’ for 2021 revealed Copenhagen has been named the world’s safest city for the first time, scoring 82.4 points out of 100 in the annual Economist Intelligence Unit’s Safe Cities Index (SCI) report. Denmark’s capital jumped from joint eighth place in 2019 to the top of the list, largely thanks to the introduction of an environmental security section, in which the city scored particularly well, along with personal security. This may help to explain the shakeup at the top of the report, which ranks 60 international destinations on
SECURITY FOCUS AFRICA SEPTEMBER 2021
From 5 October, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) will go on a national strike throughout the engineering sector. The announcement made last week was precipitated by a collapse in wage talks between the union and employers. NUMSA is demanding an 8% salary hike in the first year, followed by a 2% increase for two years thereafter. Employers, through the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa, are offering 4.4% for 2021, 0.5% for 2022 and 1% in 2023. firstthing@dailymaverick.co.za
High court sets aside key aspects of Mining Charter in setback for Mineral Resources Department The Pretoria High Court has ruled that once a mining company is empowered, it is always empowered. It also found that the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy is not empowered to make law. This is a judicial smackdown against the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, with an adverse cost finding to boot. www.dailymaverick.co.za
South Africans are boosting their home security amid a growing crime wave SA citizens are taking security into their own hands, according to recent data from South African insurers. This likely comes on the back of the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) latest crime statistics, which show that residential robberies have increased significantly, up by 7.6% from 4,916 to 5,288 cases from January to March 2021 compared to the previous year. Quarterly crime statistics reflected double-digit increases in crimes between April and the end of June in South Africa.
securityfocusafrica.com