Rudolf Gaiseb

A local digital firm, Facilit8 Namibia, has warned that Namibia’s data infrastructure is increasingly becoming vulnerable to cyber-attacks, and the trend is worrying. 

This was said by Facilit8 owner and technology specialist, Nrupesh Soni. 

He highlighted recent incidents at Paratus Namibia and Telecom Namibia, saying they revealed concerning underlying issues of cybersecurity readiness and resilience.

“Namibia’s reliance on international networks and service providers increases its exposure to global cyber threats. The inter-connected nature of telecommunications and internet services means a breach in one organisation could potentially compromise others, highlighting systemic risks. The absence of a centralised incident response system, such as a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), further exacerbates this vulnerability,” he added.

On the other hand, he said the involvement of international cybersecurity advisors indicates that this was not a run-of-the-mill incident, but rather a complex attack that required advanced forensic analysis.

“Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting infrastructure companies to maximise impact, and Namibia’s growing digital ecosystem is becoming a more attractive target.

The most recent cyber-attack against Paratus Namibia emphasises the need for Namibian businesses to enhance their cyber-security resilience through continuous monitoring, employee training and adopting zero-trust security architectures,”.

Paratus Namibia reported that over 84 gigabytes of its corporate data were exfiltrated by a globally recognised cyber-criminal group, Akira Ransomware.

Managing director Andrew Hall confirmed in a statement the data includes non-disclosure agreements, driver’s licences, passports, birth certificates, contact numbers and email addresses of employees and customers, and financial data (audits, payment details, reports).

Paratus experienced the ransomware attack on 13 February 2025.

“We continue to work closely with international cyber-security experts to fully assess the situation and take all necessary steps to protect our stakeholders’ interests,” the statement read.

“Internal investigations indicate that approximately 84GB of data, primarily from Paratus Namibia’s internal file server, is currently in the possession of the attackers. The customer backups stored in our cloud-hosted backup solution remain encrypted by default, making them unusable to external parties, and mitigating the risk of unauthorised access,” Hall stated.

The firm urged all stakeholders to remain vigilant during this time, and advised them to exercise extreme caution with any suspicious emails or messages, not click on unknown or unexpected links, be wary of any unusual communications claiming to be from Paratus, and report any suspicious activities to the incident response team. 

“We are taking a firm stance against this criminal act and wish to provide our stakeholders with a clear update on the situation,” Hall assured.

In another statement issued on 20 February 2025, Paratus said after detecting unusual activity, internal IT teams took swift, immediate, and decisive action in line with the incident response protocols.

“These measures included isolating the affected environment, removing VPN access, and securing all impacted systems — particularly our voice (083) services and certain cloud-hosted environments containing the threat and minimising further service and operational disruption,” the managing director said at the time.

The firm immediately enlisted the assistance of top-tier international security experts, who joined on-site the following day.

“Together, we are employing proven international methodologies to meticulously restore our infrastructure and data,” he said.

The firm has assured that investigations are underway.

Similarly, last December, Telecom was also hacked.

The parastatal fell victim to a ransomware attack, allegedly coordinated by a group known as Hunters International.

This resulted in over 400 000 public records being leaked. 

Namibia’s Data Protection Bill has not yet been implemented, but was finalised and submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Legislation (CCL) for discussion and determination of the next course of action.

In November last year, Information and Communication Technology minister Emma Theofelus said during a high-level ICT stakeholders’ engagement, the Cybercrime Bill has been redrafted, and is being considered by her ministry and that of justice.

Civil society caucuses for the implementation and enforcement of this legislation to curb growing cybercrimes in the country.

“These laws should mandate data breach reporting, ensuring transparency and accountability across all sectors. Establishing a national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) would enhance coordination in responding to cyber incidents and foster collaboration with international cybersecurity agencies. This centralised response system would play a pivotal role in sharing threat intelligence, conducting cyber drills, and mitigating large-scale attacks,” Soni underscored.

Namibia is ranked 110th on cybersecurity.

The tech expert said the country also needs to invest in capacity building and cybersecurity education to cultivate local talent by partnering educational institutions and international organisations that can help develop specialised training programmes, reducing the country’s reliance on international experts.

“Technological investments, particularly in advanced threat detection systems powered by Artificial Intelligence and Zero Trust architectures, will further fortify Namibia’s digital infrastructure,” he underlined. -rrgaiseb@gmail.com