SAWS recovers forecast-generating system
The South African Weather Service has managed to recover its forecast-generating system after suffering a cyber-attack in January.
The security breach resulted in disruptions to aviation, marine and web services.
The attack caused widespread uncertainty about the entity’s ability to provide critical weather and climate services.
The forecast-generating system ingests raw weather data fed into it by other information systems, processes it, and then generates customised meteorological outputs before dissemination.
The entity can now transmit weather products, including forecasts and warnings digitally.
“The public can now access daily rainfall, minimum and maximum weather temperature forecasts, as well as severe weather warnings via the SAWS’s main website, amongst other currently used avenues of access,” said SAWS CEO Ishaam Abader
The SAWS said it is now working to reinstate the bulk SMS and email distribution of weather information to end-users.
"The team is also working on restoring the Fire Danger Index products and marine forecast model input", he explained.
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