South African organisations are facing a growing cybersecurity challenge at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating technological change across every sector of the economy. The country was already one of the most targeted cyber environments in Africa before the latest advances in AI. According to industry research, local organisations experienced a sharp increase in cyberattacks during 2025, while cybercrime continues to impose significant financial and operational costs on businesses, government institutions and consumers.
At the same time, AI is changing how cyber threats emerge and evolve. Tasks that once required significant time, specialised skills and large teams can increasingly be performed faster and at greater scale. For organisations that already have security weaknesses, this creates additional pressure to strengthen their cyber resilience. One development that has attracted global attention is Anthropic’s latest AI model, Claude Mythos. Earlier this year, the company announced that the model was able to identify hundreds of previously unknown software vulnerabilities across widely used operating systems and browsers, including some that had gone undetected for decades.
