And the statistics are sadly alarming – eight out of ten grade 4 learners can’t read for meaning, while the adult literacy rate is 87%.

Digital literacy is equally challenging, especially given that only 10% of homes have internet access.

Many organisations however provide an immense amount of time and resources to improve the overall literacy rate and to ensure a brighter future for a well-read generation of South African children.

One encouraging success story is Education without Borders (EwB). An organisation that provides after-school education and mentorship to youth from disadvantaged communities in South Africa. It includes supplementary mathematics, English, science, and leadership programs.

These initiatives expand students’ future career and job opportunities, helping to strengthen their families and communities and break the cycle of poverty.

Award-winning internet security provider ESET is proud to offer significant support to EwB’s outstanding efforts.

ESET has contributed more than R230,000 this year alone and is a platinum partner, meaning it gives a minimum of $10 000 per year towards EwB’s initiatives.

Their funding primarily goes towards the EwB’s School in a Box programme.  School in a Box is a closed internet system covering all appropriate SA curriculum subjects including English, mathematics, and science. Each box contains 15-20 connected tablets. The students are thoroughly engaged by the opportunity of a more digital and personalised learning experience.

Onboarding ESET Southern Africa as a sponsor has allowed more learners to individualise their learning trajectories and learn how to work and navigate through technology.

“We believe in supporting organisations that are strategically aligned to our own goals. These include supporting education through technology, bridging the education divide in South Africa, and protecting the progress of future generations,” says Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of ESET South Africa.

“EwB has been making lasting changes in the lives of South African learners since 1972. With ESET SA’s help, they implemented School in a Box, affording learners from lower-income households access to the technology they need to participate in everything a modern education has to offer. This will bring new opportunities to South Africa’s youth, ensuring a bright future.”

EwB also recently announced two ground-breaking new programmes. The first is a new partnership with PeerLab Tutoring, enabling South African tertiary students to receive virtual one-on-one support and education assistance from tutors in the United States. The second is a mentoring programme that connects South African students with mentors from North America to develop bonds, exchange ideas, and navigate the challenges students might face when they leave school.

“Such programmes and collaborations serve as a reminder to ESET of why we wanted to support EwB, and why the work they do is so important. Not only do they provide education and technology to those who would have struggled to access such opportunities, but they understand the importance of supporting students to reach their full potential. They’re shaping lives and creating a future of progress – empowering the youth of today and generations of the future,” says van Vlaanderen.

At ESET, the focus is on the future – and this includes future generations. The company also started a free online resource, Safer Kids Online, as a means to digitally empower youths while keeping them safe. The site teaches kids and parents about the dangers that lurk online and how to stay safe. It not only focuses on technological education, from the ABCs of malware to the importance of strong passwords, but also educates kids about dangerous online agents such as predators and bullies – and how to stay safe from them.

“The importance and advantages of being digitally savvy cannot be underestimated today – and that includes everything from basic literacy to a deeper understanding of staying safe in the online landscape. At ESET, we want to empower youths to take advantage of everything the online world has to offer, and with allies like EwB, I believe we are making a lasting difference,” says van Vlaanderen.

In a world focused on communicating with the digital native Generation Z and tech-savvy Millennials, who were born into the digital era, are we leaving the elderly out of the conversation, especially when it comes to online security? 

Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of cybersecurity firm ESET Southern Africa says that although the younger generations still form an easy and larger target audience for fraudsters, as technology advances and more services move online, more people from older generations are connecting and, as a result, becoming victims.

“Elderly users of the internet, or ‘silver surfers’, though perhaps fewer in number, are often more vulnerable than their younger counterparts, having grown up in a physical rather than digital world. They also tend to be more trusting, making them enticing targets and often have more to lose financially than younger generations,” says van Vlaanderen.

This grey digital divide, as it is known, needs to be bridged, especially in a country that has the sixth-highest number of cybercrime victims worldwide, according to recent research conducted by cybersecurity firm Surfshark. “The COVID-19 pandemic only amplified the problem as many people suddenly had to work from home on unprotected computers and mobile phones.”

Van Vlaanderen cites alack of education and proper governance as the main reasons that South Africa has become an attractive target for cybercriminals. “As a country, our government and the police force are just not equipped to assist people who have been scammed in the same way that they can assist communities on the ground.”

Some of the ways we are falling behind include:

• Lack of investment in cybersecurity. Not all businesses and individuals have sufficient funds to make provision for cybersecurity and there is a shortage of trained cybersecurity practitioners. Some choose not to spend funds and resources on cybersecurity due to inexperience or lack of knowledge of the threat landscape. This is particularly true for the elderly.
• Slow development of cybercrime legislation and law enforcement training. The Cybercrimes Act was only adopted in January 2020. This legislation empowers our police to act against cybercrimes, but the lack of training is causing issues.
• Poor public knowledge of cyberthreats. In a recent report, iDefense, an Accenture security intelligence company, found that South African internet users are inexperienced and less technically alert than many users in other countries. 

While fraud has been around in various forms for centuries, the digital age has given rise to more sophisticated versions of longstanding schemes, giving scammers opportunities to target more victims, more easily.

Statistics are likely to represent only a fraction of the actual damage to seniors as many victims are too embarrassed to come forward and admit that they have been taken in by scammers.

We all have digital seniors in our lives, so how can we protect them in our tech-first society? ESET shares five tips that can help them – and, for that matter, you – stay safe online:

Question everything

Be cautious of everyone you interact with online or via email. People you think you know well can easily be impersonated to persuade you to give out important information.

Be on the lookout for anything unusual in an unsolicited email – the address could have one digit or letter altered, or the tone of the message could be off.

Be cautious about clicking on links or opening attachments in emails, no matter how official the correspondence looks.

Be wary of freebies

It is wise to remember the age-old advice that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you receive an email congratulating you on winning a competition that you never entered or saying you were picked randomly to win an improbable amount of money, be on guard.

These scams will often ask for personal details or a payment upfront for your prize to be released, with an accompanying sense of urgency so that you don’t ‘miss out’.

Don’t fall for the rom-con

Online dating or romance scams are the costliest kind of fraud affecting the older generation today, with fraudsters exploiting their generally more trusting natures and oftentimes their loneliness.

When visiting online dating platforms, be aware of photos that look too good to be true.

An image search on Google can help you determine if the photo is authentic or a stolen or stock photo. Other red flags include a request for private information such as a mobile phone number so you can talk in a more personal way, a profession of love alarmingly early in the relationship, or a request for money to help them out of a situation.

Put the phone down

Tech support scams targeting seniors are on the rise, where fraudsters phone or even email the target to convince them that there is an issue with their device and to ask for permission for remote access so they can fix the problem. Never allow an unknown person to access your computer.

Speak up

We need to keep an open dialogue with the silver surfers in our lives to ensure they are aware of the threats we are all facing, and how they can avoid them. If you or someone you care about does fall victim to a scam, it is important that you report it to the South African Police Service. If you’ve sent money to someone, contact your bank’s fraud prevention department.

They can try to limit further damage by cancelling your cards and stopping additional transactions. If you used your credit card you may be able to request a chargeback.

“By being made more aware of the dangers of the online world, and how to deal with them, seniors are likely to feel more engaged and less alone, which will go a long way to helping them stay safer online,” says van Vlaanderen.