South Africa’s Cultural Celebrations Become Prime Hunting Grounds for Cybercriminals Exploiting Trust and Tradition
As South Africans recently marked Heritage Day with communal celebrations and an outpouring of cultural pride across social media, a darker side of digital life emerged. The rich personal details shared during these moments of communal joy are becoming a sophisticated blueprint for cybercriminals, who see cultural heritage not as a source of national unity, but as ammunition for targeted manipulation.
“Heritage is not just about our traditions and history,” asserts Anna Collard, SVP of Content Strategy & CISO Advisor at KnowBe4 Africa. “It’s also about an individual’s unique digital footprint that includes their personal information and cultural affiliations.”
While celebrating one’s identity is positive, Collard warns that oversharing details, from family photos and specific locations to ancestral origins, helps criminals build detailed victim profiles essential for highly effective social engineering campaigns
Criminals consistently flock to where public interest is highest. The celebratory atmosphere of Heritage Day makes people more trusting and less likely to scrutinize suspicious communications, allowing cybercriminals to expertly exploit South African culture.
How Scammers Exploit Cultural Context:
- False Rapport: They use traditional greetings and heritage symbols to establish a false sense of trust, appealing to the strong sense of ubuntu (community spirit).
- Targeted Scams: This manifests as bogus charity appeals for community projects, or phishing campaigns promising tickets to sold-out cultural events.
- Exploiting Beliefs: Some of the most elaborate scams exploit deep-seated cultural beliefs, with fraudsters falsely claiming to represent traditional healers (sangomas) or deceased ancestors, promising to “bless” or double money through a ritual to steal life savings.
- AI-Powered Impersonation: Fraudsters are increasingly using artificial intelligence to study cultural posts, allowing them to impersonate trusted community leaders or heritage groups.
“Be especially wary of attacks that leverage personal data from your social-media accounts to create a false sense of trust,” cautions Collard.
Another subtle but potent risk is the deliberate use of “rage-bait” around culturally sensitive topics.
Rage-bait is content intentionally designed to provoke anger or outrage to increase engagement. Scammers often use these posts as a tactic in a larger social-engineering campaign, exploiting cultural stereotypes or vulnerabilities for malicious purposes.
It’s best not to comment on these posts. Engagement, even negative, can expose your profile and personal details to a criminal.
Protecting one’s digital identity is fundamentally a psychological challenge. As heritage and identity are deeply emotional topics, they can bypass rational security thinking if exploited by scammers.
“Technical solutions alone ignore how values influence decision-making and risk assessment,” Collard maintains. “We need to foster digital mindfulness and teach people how to be aware of these tactics.”
Actionable Steps for Individuals:
- Smart Sharing: Review privacy settings before posting heritage-themed content. Avoid sharing specific locations, family details, or financial information.
- Verification Habits: Double-check heritage-related offers or invitations through official channels. Be sceptical of any unsolicited message, even if it references your culture.
- Digital Hygiene: Use a password manager to create and manage strong, unique passwords and enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all your accounts.
Guidance for Organisations:
- Proactive Awareness: Run campaigns to make employees aware of the specific dangers that exist online when sharing too much personal information during cultural holidays.
- Culturally Relevant Training: Use scenarios that are relevant to local culture and context in security awareness training to make the threats more tangible and memorable.
Heritage Day should strengthen our cultural bonds, not expose us to vulnerability. “By staying culturally connected while remaining digitally cautious,” Collard concludes, “we can celebrate our heritage while securing our futures, safely.”
