10 Security Gaps Leaving SA Infrastructure Sites Exposed
Broken camera coverage, no real-time feedback and over-dependence on manual actions. These are the common infrastructure security vulnerabilities leaving operators blind and sites at risk.
What infrastructure security vulnerabilities are you not even aware of?
In South Africa, cable theft alone costs the economy an estimated R7 billion in losses per year, affecting critical infrastructure like rail, electricity and mining sites. In late 2022, Eskom reported 760 incidents of armed robberies, fuel theft and sabotage in just 90 days. In 2023, there were over 2,000 incidents of cable and conductor theft in the Johannesburg area alone, significantly disrupting operations and costing millions in repairs and downtime.
Mining operations and substations are also frequent targets, which is why sectors like mining have internal guidelines of physical patrol rounds every 4 to 6 hours (although criminals know these gaps and operate around them). It’s not much better in logistics and warehousing where SA ranks No. 1 in Africa for projected losses due to cargo theft. Similarly at factories and industrial plants where annual losses are estimated to be around R45 billion per year. And, since there’s no strict national benchmark for response times at remote sites, most incidents are discovered much too late.
The Big Delay: Typical Response Times
At remote assets, breaches are often only detected after several hours, sometimes days, once physical patrols or staff arrive on site. Some repairs and investigations in Gauteng can take as long as 7 days after it’s reported.
Periodic patrols, manual camera footage checks after the fact, or alerts from local community security groups are easily circumvented by criminals who might breach at night or on a weekend, knowing it won’t be discovered till many hours later.
In mining and heavy industrial facilities, for example, equipment sabotage or diesel theft may go unnoticed until the next shift arrives — by then, tanks can be drained and machinery damaged.
The impact is severe: longer outages and shutdowns, higher financial losses, and greater safety and compliance risks.
How Most Infrastructure Sites in SA Manage Security
Most operators still rely on a familiar toolkit: fences and gates with basic contacts; limited CCTV focused on entrances or high-value zones; access control without immediate on-site response; guards and roving patrols; and manual, fragmented incident handling via phone or chat.
These systems are siloed. Cameras, access, alarms and operational tech data live separately so there’s no unified view to accelerate detection and response. And these, by nature, are what cause the often immense vulnerabilities in SA that invite further incidents. Here’s what site operators should be looking out for…
10 Infrastructure Security Vulnerabilities in SA – Recognise Any?
1
Limited Or Broken Camera Coverage
Large perimeters and legacy hardware leave blind zones — misaligned domes, failed IR or damaged housings — precisely where intruders probe. In poor visibility (fog/rain), detection accuracy drops sharply, so even “covered” zones may be effectively dark at night.
2
No Smart Perimeter Detection
Without tuned PIDS (vibration/fibre/microwave), cuts and climbs in remote corners go unflagged. Where PIDS exist but aren’t tuned, wildlife and weather drive nuisance alarms that desensitise teams.
3
No Real-Time Monitoring (Record-Only CCTV)
If footage is reviewed only after an incident, you’re investigating, not preventing. Human-factors guides recommend ~20-minute stints for critical vigilance tasks; many control rooms don’t staff or design for this.
4
False Alarms Causing Alarm Fatigue
Wind-shaken fences, rain squalls and wandering wildlife generate floods of low-quality alerts. Over time, teams mute or ignore alarms, slowing checks on the rare high-risk event.
5
Remote Isolation & Weak Connectivity
Many sites can’t sustain live feeds to a central room. Rural connectivity gaps hinder any “see-decide-dispatch” loop, stretching time-to-detect and time-to-respond.
6
Dependence On Manual Patrols
Four- to twelve-hour patrol cycles create predictable windows. Criminal groups plan around them, knowing a breach at 02:00 may only be discovered at 06:00 or later.
7
Siloed Systems (No Single Pane Of Glass)
Cameras, access control, alarms, fleet GPS, fuel meters and OT sensors often don’t speak to each other. Without cross-signal correlation, operators miss weak signals that would confirm a real breach.
8
Unstructured WhatsApp-Based Incident Handling
WhatsApp is widely used for incident reporting, but without structure, key details get lost in chat threads, making it hard to track events, enforce SLAs, or respond quickly.
9
Fuel And Spares Theft Hidden In Operations Data
Unmonitored fuel transfers, uncorrelated access logs and missing truck telematics let siphoning run undetected. When incidents surface days later during reconciliation, recovery odds are near zero.
10
No Weather-Aware Detection Logic
If analytics thresholds don’t adapt to fog, rain and wind, you either miss real intrusions or drown in false ones. Designs must compensate.
What a Modern, Integrated Approach Looks Like
Fixing these vulnerabilities doesn’t mean throwing out your existing systems, but it does mean rethinking how they work together. The most resilient remote sites are shifting to connected, real-time infrastructure monitoring where:
Aerial and wide-area visibility
Drone feeds and camera traps extend coverage beyond fixed CCTV. Smart analytics filter out wildlife and weather noise so only high-confidence events trigger alerts.
Real-time guard and asset tracking
Live GPS for personnel and vehicles enables faster, proximity-based responses to breaches or equipment tampering.
Automated incident detection and logging
Sensor fusion, combining motion, vibration and access data, flags likely intrusions instantly and logs them in a structured, auditable way.
Structured reporting from WhatsApp
Bridge the gap between WhatsApp and formal logs by extracting key details into trackable incidents with SLAs.
Cross-system correlation with operational data
Link fuel levels, conveyor status or generator events to security alerts to surface theft or sabotage that CCTV alone may miss.
Predictive insights from pattern analysis
Identify recurring hotspots by location or time of day to pre-empt incidents and deploy patrols more strategically.
These aren’t futuristic ideas. They’re already being used at sites across South Africa to close critical security gaps, reduce response times and limit operational losses.
