{"id":861458,"date":"2026-05-25T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=861458"},"modified":"2026-05-25T16:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:50:26","slug":"sars-responds-to-data-breach-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/861458\/sars-responds-to-data-breach-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"SARS responds to data breach claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has refuted recent social media posts claiming its systems were breached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tax collector said the claims were false and unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;SARS continuously monitors its systems for any suspicious activity and has conducted a thorough investigation in response to these reports,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;At this stage, there is no evidence that SARS\u2019s systems have been compromised. SARS wishes to reassure the public regarding the integrity of its systems.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The claims emerged over the weekend, when a group calling itself Nullsec Nigeria\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/security\/649464-nigerian-hacking-group-claims-it-breached-sars.html\">said it breached<\/a>\u00a0SARS and the South African Information Technology Agency (SITA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nullsec Nigeria, which previously operated under the name Anonymous Nigeria, posted links on a hacker forum to allegedly compromised data from two South African organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It claimed the SARS data included names, email addresses and passwords used on official websites. The SITA link allegedly contained names, passwords, and the platforms used to access SITA services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SITA also denied experiencing any breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SARS said it treats the protection of taxpayer information and the security of its digital platforms as sacrosanct and as its core responsibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;This dovetails with SARS\u2019s broader commitment to build a smart, modern institution with unquestionable integrity, and to strengthen public trust and confidence in the tax administration system,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SARS said it would continue to monitor its digital environment and, where necessary, would communicate through its official platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tax service gave an additional warning, urging the public to remain vigilant against scams and phishing attempts, particularly where messages claim to be from SARS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has refuted recent social media posts claiming its systems were breached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":780565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[3246],"class_list":["post-861458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861461,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861458\/revisions\/861461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}