International cybersecurity firm ESET's bi-annual Threat Report 2024 has warned that South Africa is the most often targeted nation in Africa for ransomware and infostealer attacks.
As reports of cybersecurity attacks continue to grab national headlines, a number of public institutions, such as municipalities, state-owned entities, and private businesses, have been hit by cyberattacks in the last three years.
Dube iConnect, a telecommunications and cloud-computing provider owned by Dube TradePort Special Economic Zone, is working with business leaders to take proactive measures to secure the digital assets of public-sector institutions.
"In the South African context, cybersecurity has become a priority with the rampant cyberattacks mainly affecting public institutions,” said Brynn Gerson, Senior Manager, Dube iConnect.
Public-sector institutions targeted in cyberattacks in recent years have included Transnet, the National Health Laboratory Service, the South African Weather Service and South African Airways.
“We've started a programme of working with municipalities and other public institutions to migrate their services on to a cloud environment, where they will have readily available disaster recovery tools that will ensure the resilience of their systems to safeguard operations from this ever-evolving risk,” said Gerson.
“We are engaging with leaders within the public sector to provide public institutions with a measure of security for public service.”
Ransomware attacks have surged, with cybercriminals increasingly targeting sensitive data to pressure companies into paying ransoms.
During the first half of 2024 alone, ransomware accounted for 58% of large cyber insurance claims globally, according to Allianz Commercial.
As businesses and government institutions are increasingly becoming dependent on technology to deliver services, cyber risks rise.
These updated cyberattacks pose a unique challenge because they often bypass traditional antivirus software, which is commonly used as the first line of defence in detecting threats.
Dube iConnect champions the implementation of a layered approach to cybersecurity, which focuses on defence against intrusion, encryption of stored data and recovery of critical systems and information. Strategies such as cloud storage versioning, which ensure that original data cannot be manipulated by malware or hackers, enable business continuity for affected public institutions.
Dube iConnect Commercial Manager, Steve Johnson, said the company had a reseller network that enabled clients to access back-up as a service (Baas) or disaster recovery as a service (Draas) without the costs and complexity of managing infrastructure.
"Data is fully encrypted at every step, and back-ups are as safe and confidential as they would be in a dedicated off-site repository, so that data of all types is completely protected and easy to recover,” he said.
Dube iConnect has on-site data centres with an advanced virtualisation environment, ensuring that users are able to retrieve data and continue operating seamlessly even after a cyberattack.
