SECURITY
NEWS
Why a partner-led approach is critical to effective cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is a specialist field
that requires focus and dedicated
resources. Rentia Booysen, Product
Manager at Westcon-Comstor
Sub-Saharan Africa, explains how
relying on an experienced partner
ecosystem becomes critical to put
cybersecurity in place.
Research by Accenture and the Ponemon
Institute indicates most business leaders
feel their cybersecurity risks are growing
in momentum as the world becomes
increasingly digital. This has resulted in
global spending on solutions increasing from
US$34 billion in 2017 to an expected US$42
billion by the end of 2020. But being able
to identify a trusted partner that can help
navigate the complexities associated with
cybersecurity is also critical to successfully
safeguarding organisational assets. In
other words, spending money on security
solutions is not sufficient on its own to
safeguard an enterprise; strategic expertise
is also needed.
As technology has evolved, so
cyberattacks have become more
sophisticated. An anti-virus checker and
firewall are no longer the only countermeasures
decision makers must consider
if they are to protect company data and
infrastructure. Instead, a shift is happening
towards implementing proactive measures
to identify threats before they penetrate
the network and compromise data. Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and
automation become vital allies as companies
shore up defences. Of course, these solutions
must be effectively integrated, if the
myriad of touch points into the company
are effectively secured. And the partner
ecosystem needs to support this every step
of the way.
Such an integrated approach incorporates
advanced threat protection, next-generation
firewalls, security management and analytics
and other innovations focused on automating
the majority of these processes. However,
this means very little of cybersecurity is
inaccessible to all users in the organisation,
what it really requires is oversight from a
single pane of glass. In the event that this is
deployed, the IT department can immediately
identify weak points and better allocate
resources to where they are needed most.
A defensive ecosystem
Cybersecurity is a specialist field that
requires focus and dedicated resources.
Most companies cannot afford to put
these in place amidst all the other strategic
priorities they must accomplish. This is
where relying on an experienced partner
ecosystem becomes critical.
This is very apparent in the South African
channel environment. Vendors have learned
to rely on a process where their partners
and resellers imbue solutions with local
relevance and the customisation required
to best fit conditions in the market. Take
adherence to our own data protection laws
as a prime example. The partners who
excel at this are the ones that empower
their resellers with the expertise and value
propositions needed to help safeguard client
systems against prevailing threats and
attacks. But this goes beyond a solutionsonly
focus.
Instead, the channel must provide
an environment that meets a variety of
cybersecurity needs, across the public
cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud and onpremises.
Solutions must work across these
environments while still giving companies
the ability to scale according to their growth
needs. Furthermore, these must be fully
compliant with prevailing regulation to keep
sensitive data protected.
Trust is required
Changing market conditions dictate that
companies must become more agile in
how they protect their data and systems.
Therefore, cybersecurity is a dynamic
process where solutions must always be
adaptable to the current threat actors and
their attack tools.
Relying on a trusted partner in this
respect extends beyond the nuts and bolts of
a solution to gaining a detailed understanding
of the business and its strategic objectives.
The security solution provider then becomes
more informed regarding how best to
approach protection and create a more
flexible, secure environment customised to a
specific organisation.
Cybersecurity cannot have a one size
fits all strategy if it is to be effective.
It should follow a process by which a
business deploys innovative technologies
that deliver integrated, proactive and userfriendly
protection, while being guided by
the experience of trusted partners with
local insights.
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