The reality of the South African security market today is that arrests and prosecution for cybercrime is low and the country is a prime target for organised crime, which forensic expert Jason Jordaan defined as entities that function as businesses and are driven by the lure of money and power.

Speaking at the 10th annual ITWeb Security Summit in May, Jordaan, founder and principal forensic scientist at DFIRLABS, covered the impact of organised crime on the cyberspace domain.

Incidents of security breach targeted at Gautrain and Postbank have made headlines and were attributed to syndicates, but there is a distinction between syndicates and organised crime groups Jordaan added.

He said that as long as money and business is conducted through cyberspace, it will continue to attract organised crime and South Africa, with its endemic corruption, is a key target for these groups.

"In South Africa, do we think that cybercrime is priority?, I personally don't think so... it is not a focus, not enough resources are being invested," he said.

"We need to think like an organised crime boss to identify the vulnerabilities in our systems and secure our organisations," he added.

Another reality of the market is that investigations are mostly reactive to specific crimes discovered, there is a definite need for public/private partnerships to share information and conduct proactive cyber threat intelligence activities.

Jordaan said the local market urgently needed platforms for information sharing and a more proactive approach to evidence collection and processing.