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While African big businesses are increasingly utilising big data analytics to enhance their competitiveness, many small to medium enterprises (SMEs) across the continent remain hesitant to adopt these tools. Although SMEs could also gain significant benefits from big data analytics, the factors driving their potential adoption for information security management are not yet well understood. This paper presents a qualitative grounded theory study, focusing on SMEs in South Africa. Through in-depth analysis, this research generated a theory that reveals key factors influencing the adoption of big data analytics amongst these SMEs. Using semi-structured interviews, data were collected from 28 owner-managers of SMEs, then transcribed and systematically coded using the grounded theory approach. The resulting substantive theory provides valuable insights into the core aspects driving big data adoption for information security management among South African SMEs – specifically, ability, opportunity, and motivation. The study implies that by understanding the impact of these three factors, SMEs can make more informed decisions to enhance information security performance.