themselves Anonymous Africa hacked the
Zimbabwes defence, and targeted South Africas
ruling party African National Congress (ANC)
websites (Sultan, 2016; Shaban, 2016). Countries
such as Zambia and South Africa suffer from
cybercrimes to the tune of 0.14% and 0.16% of
their GDPs respectively (McAfee Intel Security,
2014). Continentally, there is the African Union
Convention on Cybersecurity and the Personal
Data Protection 2014 that seeks to harmonize
African cyber legislations on electronic commerce,
organization and, personal data protection, cyber
security promotion and cybercrime control
(Nyirenda-Jere & Biru, 2015) The SADC region
has model laws on:
Data Protection, 2012;
Cybercrime, 2012; and
Electronic Transactions, 2012 (Chetty,
2013).
The problem in Zimbabwe is that there is no cyber
security framework in place (Ministry of
Information and Communication Technology,
2015). Zimbabwe launched the IT Governance
and Cyber Security Institute of Sub-Sahara in early
2012. Its mandate is to increase information
exchange, promote research and reporting of cyber
threats, and hold periodic ICT security
symposiums (UNIDIR, 2013).
In October 2017, a new Ministry of Cyber Security,
Threat Detection and Mitigation was created,
which is meant protect the nation from cyber
threats posed by the abuse of social media (The
Herald.co.zw, 2017) .
To address cyber security concerns, Zimbabwe is
currently in the process of crafting new legislation,
covering e-commerce, cybercrime and data
protection which are still in draft form. The draft
Computer Crime and Cybercrime Bill has attracted
the most attention because it spills into how
citizens use technology everyday through services
like social media and sharing Wi-Fi connections.
(Gambanga, 2016). Some of the potential offences
in the draft Computer Crime and Cybercrime bill
are: Illegally accessing a device, Interfering with
data, Sharing access codes, Altering or destroying a
password or PIN code, Data Espionage,
Computer-related forgery, Computer related
terrorism activities, Pornography, Identity theft,
Racist/Xenophobic/tribalist insults, Spam, and
Online Harassment (Gambanga, 2016).
Zimbabwe Internet Usage trends and Cyber
Security threats incidences
Zimbabwe has witnessed significant growth of the
internet, with statistics showing a penetration rate
of 50% in 2016, according to the Postal &
Telecomunications Regulatory Authority of
4
Zimbabwe (POTRAZ, 2017). As at 30 June 2017,
the total number of internet subscriptions was
6,668,155 (POTRAZ, 2017). According to
POTRAZ (2016) Report, Zimbabwe had
12,878,926 mobile phone subscribers. Facebook is
the most popular platform in Zimbabwe; Twitter
is also slowly gaining momentum (MISA-
Zimbabwe, 2015). This has seen mobile Internet
data usage up by 19%, whilst national mobile voice
traffic declined by 15% (POTRAZ, 2017). This
means internet use is growing fast in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has suffered a number of cyber security
breaches on various institutions but mostly in
government departments. According to the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ 2015),
cybercrime is listed as one of the crimes
contributing to the US$1, 8 billion estimated illicit
proceeds generated from criminal activity annually
in Zimbabwe. Between 2011 and 2015, about 140
cases of cybercrimes were reported and these
include; Phishing (20); Credit Card Fraud (13);
Identity Theft (10); Unauthorized Access (24);
Hacking (72); and Telecommunications Piracy (1).
These statistics are evidence of Zimbabwes
vulnerability to computer and cybercrimes and
thus the pressing need for a legal framework to
combat these crimes before they become pervasive
(MISA-Zimbabwe & Digital Society Zimbabwe,
2016). Further, approximately 37 government
related sites were hacked between 2013 and 2016.
Impact on Government related sites and Other