Security
The next wave of ransomware in 2022
Ransomware as a trend will continue to affect businesses across the world in 2022 – with attack types and tactics from cybercriminals evolving all the time. As attacks get more sophisticated, so do the consequences of falling victim to ransomware and the complexity of the clean-up. The stakes are therefore higher than ever for businesses when it comes to protecting against ransomware attacks. Organisations need to understand the emerging trends that we will see gather speed throughout 2022 and prepare their defences for the ransomware onslaught. Make your business insurable: The tension between insurers and businesses affected by ransomware is mounting. In EMEA we have already seen global insurance giant AXA announced that it will stop writing cyber-insurance policies in France that reimbu...
What every leader must know about cybersecurity
Digitization means every single company now is vulnerable to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity has now become a topical issue affecting enterprises and the bedrock of tomorrow’s intelligent business. For enterprises to succeed they have to invest in digital capabilities that are robust and supported by a cybersecurity strategy that is sophisticated enough to ward off any attacks. Join Shelt & IT News Africa for this informative panel discussion around the constant threats enterprises face and what leaders in the industry need to know about building winning cybersecurity strategies for your business that go far beyond avoiding this worst case scenario. This will be followed by a simulation of a hypothetical crisis where the panel gets to discuss and come up with possible solutions. Date: ...
Custom Device Management: The Road Ahead for Businesses That Need More Than a Smartphone
Modern-day Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions offer much more than basic device management features. Today’s business world cannot imagine a day without technology. All global industrial sectors rely on smartphones and computers to drive communication, automation and accelerate business operations. While these smart devices have dominated the corporate world for long enough, businesses are now moving towards a much more personalized digital approach. The usage of simple smartphones, tablets or laptops is not enough, organizations today desire digital devices that are customized for their business needs. Custom Devices for Diverse Businesses Major sectors like healthcare, hospitality, retail, education and logistics have advanced towards custom-made devices to cater to their distincti...
Bitcoin network hash rate explodes to a new all-time high of 248.11 EH/s
The Bitcoin (BTC) network has recorded a new hash rate all-time high of 248.11M TH/s as of Feb. 12, 2022, further securing the decentralized ecosystem through a growing network of global BTC miners. The hash rate correlates to the computing power required by a miner’s computer equipment to confirm a transaction. The recent spike in BTC’s network hash rate ensures further security against attacks by deterring bad actors from confirming fraudulent transactions. Bitcoin hash rate over the past year. Source: YCharts As evidenced by the above screenshot, the network hash rate jumped 31.69% — from 188.40 EH/s to 248.11 EH/s — in just one day. Moreover, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate levels rose 54.33% over the past year. Bitcoin hash rate over the past one month. Source: YCharts Pre...
Lost Bitcoin may be a ‘donation,’ but is it hindering adoption?
Cryptocurrency custody solutions have become a big business over the last few years. Independent storage and security systems meant to hold large quantities of crypto on behalf of clients can bring in institutional capital and retail investors waiting on the sidelines simply because they remove a major fear: losing access to funds that become unrecoverable. Because of the decentralized nature of major blockchains like that of Bitcoin or Ethereum, whenever a user loses access to their wallet and doesn’t have a backup of their private keys, the funds within it cannot be recovered. There’s no central entity to turn to, and no one can control the blockchain to give anyone access back to their funds. Storing a private key can be challenging, as it needs to be kept away from bad actors, yet clos...
Cybercrime: how lessons from SA life can help businesses
Image sourced from Feed Navigator. South Africans have become accustomed to dealing with crime because we have no other choice. Various sources place South Africa near the pinnacle of lists of the highest crime rates in the world. If you are a South African, or someone living in South Africa, you most likely take a number of precautions at home, work and play to avoid falling victim to crime. We know that criminals can, and do, strike at any time and at any place. Rather than do nothing, we adjust the way we do things to minimise or remove our risk of falling victim to crime. From physical measures like burglar bars and electric fences to behavioural changes such as not leaving doors unlocked to intruders, being aware of our surroundings when out and about, to security measures such as pla...
Robust data backup is a vital line of ransomware defence
Image by Darwin Laganzon, Pixabay. It’s common knowledge that ransomware attacks are on the rise and organisations need to be realistic about what this means for their security. The number of entry points into IT systems that attackers can exploit has skyrocketed in recent years. According to the FBI, there has been a 300% rise in cybercrimes during the pandemic as more people log on to their work systems from home networks and personal devices. Ransomware isn’t going anywhere. Rising global connectivity, the recent rapid adoption of digital communication technologies, and remote working all create potential new ‘doors’ into IT systems. Growing technologies such as the cloud, 5G and the IoT means our connectivity will continue to multiply, meaning more doors and more opportunity for ransom...
The impact of the pandemic on cybersecurity
Ralph Berndt, Director of Sales at Syrex Even prior to the pandemic, organisations had begun putting in place elements to manage distributed employees whether that be through corporate remote desktop or virtual private networking (VPN) capabilities. However, this was not done at the scale and at a rate required to manage the disruption caused by COVID-19. Suddenly, companies had to deal with the influx of connectivity challenges that they needed to overcome for their employees to remain productive. Furthermore, support teams now had to manage providing access to critical systems, which were mainly hosted on-premises within the relative safety of their own corporate network. In many cases this resulted in companies having to implement more VPN licences to manage these additional external co...
2022 Predictions: 5 Cybersecurity trends we’ll see this year
“Unprecedented” is a word that defined 2020 and 2021. Once the pandemic hit, we saw a record number of businesses implement work-from-home systems to ensure business continuity, remotely and online. With this rise in digital transformation, we’ve witnessed a blurring of the traditional online perimeters needing to be secured. As CrowdStrike notes, today, a company’s network can be on-site, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both, with resources and staff spread across locations. This presents a cybersecurity challenge, giving way to a dramatic increase in exploits. Suddenly, “once-in-a-decade” breaches of the past are now happening monthly, with a laundry list of companies falling victim. This proliferation of cyber-attacks has catapulted the zero-trust security framework into the limelight. Zer...
Five ways to prevent payments fraud in your business
Ryan Mer, CEO at eftsure Africa The social and economic impact of Covid-19 has led to a marked increase in opportunistic crimes of desperation, particularly in digital payments fraud as consumers flock to digital channels to replace or supplement in-person interactions. This rapid shift to digital, which is providing necessary solutions during a time of crisis, is fuelling a surge in payments fraud worldwide. And the threat to companies isn’t only coming from the outside; internal fraud in departments responsible for supplier payments is on the rise, especially with staff working remotely. Ryan Mer, CEO at eftsure Africa, a Know Your Payee™ (KYP) platform provider says that while the amount of business transactions taking place online is constantly growing and remote working has bec...
Increasing cybercrime threats daily mean no one is immune
Steve Flynn, Sales and Marketing Director for ESET Southern Africa Increasing cyber security threats are throttling businesses and holding citizens to ransom. The rapid shift to full remote working and accelerated digital transformation has left many organisations and end-users vulnerable to a new wave of sophisticated online security threats. A lack of adequate protection and a shortage of cyber security experts globally has created an environment for cybercrime to flourish. Steve Flynn, Sales and Marketing Director for ESET Southern Africa, says that immediately implementing adequate and proactive threat protection solutions is required. “Threat protection can feel like a massive undertaking which requires long development and implementation times, or for the end-users, something that th...
How a common network security technology stack aligns IT & Cybersecurity
There’s no question that ensuring enterprise network security is becoming increasingly difficult for IT and security teams. In the first half of 2021, cyberattackers launched 5.4 million distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks—an 11 percent increase from the year before. And cyberattacks equate to big paydays for attackers. In just the first half of 2021, one ransomware group collected $100 million in payments. The money gleaned from those attacks is then used to buy more expensive attack tools that can be used to further overwhelm enterprise IT and security teams. Given the increase in attacks and the added stress they create for enterprises, the solution often is to add new security tools to address the biggest pain points of the moment. But that strategy creates additiona...
