The eNaTIS website invaded by a hacker on Wednesday contained no vital data whatsoever, the Department of Transport said on Thursday.
Despite a media tempest and fears of identity fraud, the public eNaTIS website cracked by "Tao" contains no driver registration information - "a deliberate design choice" - for security reasons, the department said in a statement.
"Any attempt to hack this website ( www.enatis.com) is totally fruitless... The system can only by accessed by work stations that are authorised to access the system and all communication with the system is encrypted."
Nevertheless, cybersecurity experts have voiced concerned that the system was breached at all.
"The penetration of the transport department's (website) by hackers earlier this week is only the tip of the iceberg," said Wolfgang Selzer, head of internet security firm Exponant.
"Unlike the recent past when the majority of the attacks were done for fun, recent attacks showed very clearly that profit was the name of the game and criminal syndicates were involved."
The department said fraud was an impossibility because no private information was leaked. Only the public website's "How Do I?" help link was affected.
Users received a message when they clicked the link that read "Sorry bro anda terlambat. Patch by Tao. OK?!!"
The online security firm Symantec placed South Africa 42nd in the world in terms of frequency of malicious web activity in its March 2007 Internet Security Threat Report.