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The SABC building in Auckland Park in Johannesburg, South Africa.
- South African Broadcasting Corporation says it has fixed the security breach and hacking on its television licensing website.
- He apologized to the public for the “unfortunate incident.”
- The breach was a blow to the broadcaster, which has been fighting to collect television license fees.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation resolved the security breach and piracy it detected on its television licensing website Thursday night, it said Friday.
“The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is pleased to announce that the hack of its television licensing website has been resolved.
“The SABC is committed to safeguarding the privacy of its clients’ details and will take further action in this regard. The public broadcaster once again apologizes to the public for this unfortunate incident,” SABC said in a statement.
The outage was a severe blow to the broadcaster, which relies on pushing payments for television licenses to boost revenue. It has been working to increase compliance, which is currently low.
In its initial announcement Thursday, the SABC said the problem had been identified and was being addressed, urging licensees not to post their personal information on the site.
“This problem has been prioritized and treated with the urgency it deserves by the technology and media infrastructure division of the corporation.
“The SABC would like to appeal to the public not to leave your personal data on the website until this matter is resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused,” the statement read.
SABC’s 2019/20 annual report said 68,093 new television licensees paid license fees for the first time during the period, while 2.5 million licensees settled their fees with a known database of 9 , 5 million, which indicates an evasion rate of 81%.
“The SABC was able to perform only 19% of the total license fees billed during the 2019/20 financial year, lower than the previous period of 31%. The collection cost rate was lower by 4%, from the 12% of 2019, “the report said.
The annual report said that the lower collection cost was due to the absence of debt collection agencies that were only hired in October 2019, contributing to the marked decline in license fee revenue.
