Cape Town — The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has announced that it has implemented tighter security measures to its IT system after the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) discovered weaknesses.
During SIU investigation last year, SIU found that the scheme had incorrectly paid out billions of rands to thousands of students who did not qualify for financial aid, ITWeb reported.
The NSFAS board chairperson at the time, Ernest Khosa, expressed concern at the targeted attacks on the student aid scheme’s payment, and NSFAS was encouraged to ensure its IT systems were far more secure.
“The IT sub-committee has also discovered a number of weaknesses in our IT system. There are people who are not supposed to access it who are accessing it. In this case, we took two actions. The first one was to report the incident to the law enforcement agencies. The other action was to procure expertise to assist us to ensure our IT system is much safer,” Khosa said.
In response to the warnings from the SIU, NSFAS acting chief information officer, Thulani Meluli, appeared on Wednesday before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and informed them that NSFAS now established a cybersecurity unit to stand against attacks, according to EWN.
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“So, this unit is committed to safeguarding the sensitive data, mitigating security incidents, and fostering a culture of security within the organisation.”
NSFAS is also currently working to terminate the contracts of the service providers accused of corruption. The board was criticsed for its lack of urgency in dealing with the matter, after a Werksman attorney report recommended them to cut ties with the four companies.
“What we are doing is we are actually trying with the legal firm Werksmans to put this in the fast lane to terminate, and then simultaneously disciplinary hearings will take place, regarding the NSFAS individuals,” acting board chairperson, Professor Lourens van Staden, said.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
