Organisation and structure
The Macro-Structure of the Department of Defence as Approved by the Minister of Defence on 15 August 2008 is below: [5]
List
| |
| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1912 |
| Type | Department |
| Jurisdiction | Government of South Africa |
| Headquarters | Armscor Building, Erasmuskloof, Pretoria 25°48′47″S28°15′36″E / 25.813°S 28.260°E |
| Employees | 79 045 |
| Annual budget | R50 000+ million |
| Minister responsible | |
| Deputy Minister responsible |
|
| Department executive |
|
| Child agencies | |
| Key document | |
| Website | www |
The Department of Defence is a department of the South African government. It oversees the South African National Defence Force, the armed forces responsible for defending South Africa.
As of August 2021 [update] the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans is Thandi Modise. [1]
In August 2023, a Russian Hacker Group named “Snatch” claimed to steal 200TB of classified information, contracts and personal identity information. They allegedly posted a 1.6TB Compressed Archive on the dark web. [2] [3] The Department of Defense claimed that it was “fake news” and no data leak occurred. [4]
Snatch claimed it specifically chose the week of the 15th BRICS summit to release the data since the spotlight was on South Africa. [3]
South Africa has recently been involved in other controversies, notably being accused of providing and selling arms to Russia, performing military exercises with Russia and not taking a stance on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. [4]
The Macro-Structure of the Department of Defence as Approved by the Minister of Defence on 15 August 2008 is below: [5]
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate, and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU, is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The GRU controls the military intelligence service and maintains its own special forces units.
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is a South African businessman and politician serving as the fifth and current president of South Africa since 2018. A former anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and businessman, Ramaphosa is also the president of the African National Congress (ANC).
The Government of China is engaged in espionage overseas, directed through diverse methods via the Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the United Front Work Department (UFWD), People's Liberation Army (PLA) via its Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department, and numerous front organizations and state-owned enterprises. It employs a variety of tactics including cyber espionage to gain access to sensitive information remotely, signals intelligence, human intelligence as well as influence operations through united front activity targeting overseas Chinese communities and associations. The Chinese government is also engaged in industrial espionage aimed at gathering information and technology to bolster its economy, as well as transnational repression of dissidents abroad such as supporters of the Tibetan independence movement and Uyghurs as well as the Taiwan independence movement, the Hong Kong independence movement, Falun Gong, pro-democracy activists, and other critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The United States alleges that the degree of intelligence activity is unprecedented in its assertiveness and engagement in multiple host countries, particularly the United States, to which various US officials contend economic damages, prosperity and stolen innovations have resulted in $US320-445 billion annually since its inception and activities.
Nosiviwe Noluthando Mapisa-Nqakula is a South African politician who is currently serving as the Speaker of the National Assembly since August 2021. She was a cabinet minister from 2004 to 2021, including as Minister of Defence and Military Veterans between June 2012 and August 2021. She was an elected member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC) between 2002 and 2022 and is a former president of the ANC Women's League.
A data breach is a security violation, in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen, altered or used by an individual unauthorized to do so. Other terms are unintentional information disclosure, data leak, information leakage and data spill. Incidents range from concerted attacks by individuals who hack for personal gain or malice, organized crime, political activists or national governments, to poorly configured system security or careless disposal of used computer equipment or data storage media. Leaked information can range from matters compromising national security, to information on actions which a government or official considers embarrassing and wants to conceal. A deliberate data breach by a person privy to the information, typically for political purposes, is more often described as a "leak".
Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.
Russia–South Africa relations are foreign relations between Russia and South Africa. Full diplomatic relations were established between both countries in 1942 as the Soviet Union. Russia has an embassy in Pretoria and a consulate-general in Cape Town. South Africa has an embassy in Moscow. Both countries are also members of BRICS.
Lindiwe Nonceba Sisulu is a South African politician. She was member of parliament from 1994 until 2023, and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress as of 2023. She previously served as Minister of Housing, as Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Minister of Human Settlements from, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation and Minister of Tourism.
Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of cyber-dissidents and other active measures. According to investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, some of these activities were coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which was part of the FSB and formerly a part of the 16th KGB department. An analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 outlines Russia's view of "Information Countermeasures" or IPb as "strategically decisive and critically important to control its domestic populace and influence adversary states", dividing 'Information Countermeasures' into two categories of "Informational-Technical" and "Informational-Psychological" groups. The former encompasses network operations relating to defense, attack, and exploitation and the latter to "attempts to change people's behavior or beliefs in favor of Russian governmental objectives."
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian computer programmer, editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning: footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad, US military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and US diplomatic cables.
Anonymous is a decentralized virtual community. They are commonly referred to as an internet-based collective of hacktivists whose goals, like its organization, are decentralized. Anonymous seeks mass awareness and revolution against what the organization perceives as corrupt entities, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Anonymous has had a hacktivist impact. This is a timeline of activities reported to be carried out by the group.
Fancy Bear is a Russian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as security firms SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and Mandiant, have also said the group is sponsored by the Russian government. In 2018, an indictment by the United States Special Counsel identified Fancy Bear as GRU Unit 26165. This refers to its unified Military Unit Number of the Russian army regiments. The headquarters of Fancy Bear and the entire military unit, which reportedly specializes in state-sponsored cyberattacks and decryption of hacked data, were targeted by Ukrainian drones on July 24, 2023, the rooftop on one of the buildings collapsed as a result of the explosion.
Phineas Fisher is an unidentified hacktivist and self-proclaimed anarchist revolutionary. Notable hacks include the surveillance company Gamma International, Hacking Team, the Sindicat De Mossos d'Esquadra and the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party three of which were later made searchable by WikiLeaks.
"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. According to indictments in February 2018, the persona is operated by Russian military intelligence agency GRU. On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU agents for allegedly perpetrating the cyberattacks.
Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. While NSO Group markets Pegasus as a product for fighting crime and terrorism, governments around the world have routinely used the spyware to surveil journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists.
Khumbudzo Phophi Silence Ntshavheni is a South African politician who is currently serving as Minister in the Presidency since March 2023. She was formerly the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies from 2021 to 2023 and the Minister of Small Business Development from 2019 to 2021. She is a member of the African National Congress (ANC).
Distributed Denial of Secrets, abbreviated DDoSecrets, is a non-profit whistleblower site founded in 2018 for news leaks. The site is a frequent source for other news outlets and has worked on investigations including Cyprus Confidential with other media organisations. In December 2023, the organisation said it had published over 100 million files from 59 countries.
Anonymous, a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective, has conducted numerous cyber-operations against Russia since February 2022 when the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
 | This South African military article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about South African government is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
