A new report by the Communication Risk Information Centre (COMRiC) has revealed that telecommunications-linked fraud is costing South Africa R5.3-billion a year, with nearly 60% of mobile banking fraud linked to SIM swap crimes.

The ‘Telecommunications Sector Report 2025’ highlights a surge in criminal activity targeting both digital systems and physical infrastructure.

“South Africa’s telecommunications sector continues to face complex, layered threats, including SIM swap fraud, subscription and identity fraud, ransomware attacks and infrastructure sabotage. The illicit use of  SIM boxes, synthetic identity creation and criminal bypassing of SIM authentication processes present evolving dangers.” 

Top common cyberthreats include rapidly growing ransomware attacks, synthetic identity fraud and business email compromise, as well as phishing scams, which cost South Africans R200-million in 2023 – a 50% increase on the previous year.

Cyberattacks increased by 126% globally, while fraud in South African telecommunications- linked transactions increased by 78% from 2022 to 2023.

According to the report, cybercrime is costing the South African economy about R2.2-billion a year, while the average cost of a data breach in the country reached R53.1-million in 2024.

Communications infrastructure also continues to face physical threats, including theft and vandalism, copper cable theft, energy instability, illegal connections and environmental risks such as floods, fires and extreme weather.

Infrastructure sabotage continues to inflict billions in economic damage, destabilising network uptime, emergency services and national connectivity.

Infrastructure-related losses, driven by copper cable and lithium battery theft, vandalism and sabotage, exceeded R7-billion across the telecommunications, energy and logistics sectors.

“Telecommunications crime is no longer a siloed challenge. It touches everything from banking and energy to personal security and national infrastructure,” COMRiC points out.

However, despite the deepening complexity of these threats, the report also reflects growing resilience across the sector, with momentum building.

Artificial-intelligence- (AI-) led prevention, biometric authentication, regulatory pressure and cross-industry collaboration are showing measurable results.

Between March 2024 and April 2025, reported telecommunications fraud cases declined owing to improved real-time network monitoring, AI-powered fraud detection, real-time analytics, biometric SIM registration adoption and stronger inter-agency response coordination, which are collectively starting to shift the balance.

Mobile network operators processed 3 600 SIM swap requests between January and April 2025, of which only 3% were confirmed to be fraudulent following deeper authentication checks.

Mobile operators have also strengthened defences through participation in the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, enabling the use of secure APIs to combat subscription fraud and digital identity theft.

COMRiC CEO Thokozani Mvelase says the findings underscore both the urgency for national action to address the challenge and the momentum behind solutions.

“The 2025 report shows that while the threat landscape is escalating, so too is the sector’s capacity to respond. South Africa must now move beyond reactive measures and build a resilient, collaborative defence framework that spans the public and private sectors.”

The report calls for the immediate implementation of a National Cybersecurity Resilience Plan that mirrors the structured response already under way in the financial services sector, as well as a sector-wide Computer Security Incident Response Team to facilitate intelligence sharing, coordinated responses and early threat detection.