South Africa is coming under increasingly heavy attack, with 369 600 accounts leaked so far this year. The second quarter of the year hit a high of one user account leaked every minute.
The latest study by cybersecurity company Surfshark ranks South Africa as the 27th most breached country in the second quarter, when 161 100 accounts were leaked.
Globally, a total of 93,6-million accounts were breached, with the US ranking first and amounting to 45% of all breaches from April through June. France takes second place, while India is third, followed by Germany and Israel.
“Today’s digital age requires all of us to share more and more personal information to carry out daily tasks,” says Sarunas Sereika, product manager at Surfshark. “Whether sharing your name and address for food deliveries, or phone numbers when making a booking at a barber shop, there is no guarantee that businesses are keeping crucial information safe and secure.
“In the wrong hands, this data can be used to commit identity theft, via social media, for targeted scams or sold on the dark web – where they’re traded for further illegal use.”
Surfshark’s analysis of data breaches since 2004 shows South Africa is the second most-breached country in Africa, with 42,8-million compromised user accounts. A total of 12,7-million unique emails were breached from South Africa.
At the same time, 22,8-million passwords were leaked together with South African accounts, putting 53% of breached users in danger of account take over that might lead to identity theft, extortion or other cybercrimes. Statistically, 66 out of 100 South African people has been affected by data breaches.
In descending order, the 10 most breached countries in Q2 2025 were the US (42,5-million), France (11,4-million), India (1,7-million), Germany (1,3-million), Israel (1,2-million), Canada (968 600), the UK (944 000), Thailand (889 100), Brazil (639 600) and China (578 300).
The countries with the highest breach density over Q2 2025 (number of leaked accounts per 1 000 residents): France (172), Israel (130), the US (123), Singapore (26), Canada (24), South Sudan (23), Belgium (21), Ireland (16), Switzerland (16) and Germany (15).