INDI SIRINIWASA – VICE PRESIDENT
– TREND MICRO SUB-SAHARAN
AFRICA REGION
EDITOR’S QUESTION
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the company would need to call in experts.
Many clients or customers may go elsewhere
for their product or service, having lost trust
in the affected company. This is a very real
knock to an organisation and it could take
extensive marketing and PR to win back the
clientele they have lost. With the pending
implementation of GDPR (General Data
Protection Regulation) across Europe, many
companies who do business with European
affiliates could find that a data breach could
cost them millions; in euros.
Taking all this into account, this isn’t even
touching on the fact that ransomware is
on the rise. We witnessed the devastation
caused by WannaCry and Petya last year.
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is also one
of the threats that are coming to the forefront.
The FBI has reported that over roughly a three
year period – between October 2013 and
December 2016 – US$5.3 billion was lost due
to BEC. This year, they are predicting that the
number will reach US$9 billion.
N
ot investing in or improving on cyber
defences is short sighted at best
and could be disastrous at worst.
Cyber threats are not going anywhere. In
fact, what we are seeing is that hackers
are becoming increasingly resourceful. As
soon as a new form of defensive software
is created, guaranteed there are hackers
working on how to breach that defence.
We’ve seen several high-profile data
breaches in 2017, not least of which was a
home affairs leak that left 33 million South
Africans exposed. The worrying factor in
this particular example is not just who and
how many hackers have accessed that
information, but that the information was
possibly left on an unsecured server for a
period of two years.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
I am certain that many companies will say
they are secure enough or that a breach of
that magnitude can never touch them. We
would all like to think we have all the right
measures in place but even companies like
Uber, Yahoo and even Britain’s National
Health Service were all breached last year.
Data breaches can be expensive. If
information is leaked or unauthorised
access has been made to sensitive
documents, the company could face a
great deal of legal fees if those affected
by the breach choose to litigate. Investors
may withdraw from the company as
a result and clients may choose to no
longer use that particular company’s
services. Other costs would include the
repair to reputational damage, for which
Layered security is the way to go. The right
software and firewalls are important, without
a doubt but because many ploys involve
social engineering, training and education
of staff regarding the role they can play in
protection is vital.
Yes, excellent cyber security costs money.
Employing a knowledgeable and skilled
cyber security specialist doesn’t come cheap.
However, if we’ve learned anything from
the breaches we’ve seen in 2017, it is that
no one is invulnerable. You wouldn’t leave
your building exposed to criminals by not
installing the right equipment or employing
a 24-hour security guard and having a state
of the art alarm system. Your data, your
digital capital and your sensitive information
is no different.
www.intelligentcio.com