Tag: cybersecurity

For most South Africans, digital banking has become second nature. We pay accounts from our phones, shop online, book holidays, transfer money to family and friends, and invest through banking apps. We can complete all these transactions within seconds. Unfortunately, criminals have become just as comfortable operating in this digital world.

Buildings may be getting smarter, but too many control rooms still rely on yesterday’s technology. They use on-site servers, rigid architectures and a patchwork of interfaces. These systems are expensive to run and painfully slow to evolve. While many modern buildings are marketed as “smart”, much of today’s Building Management Systems (BMS) infrastructure remains rooted in ageing, server-bound control rooms.

South Africa's data centre sector is expanding rapidly. New investment is creating opportunities for economic growth, digital innovation and regional connectivity. It is also positioning the country as a strategic hub for Africa's digital economy. The country now hosts nearly half of Africa's data centre capacity. The local market is projected to grow from US$2.16 billion in 2024 to US$3.40 billion by 2030.

Boards spend a great deal of time asking questions. They challenge strategy, review financial performance, interrogate financial statements and revisit decisions that made sense six months ago but may no longer make sense today. That is why one question stands out: "Why are executives and boards not doing the same when it comes to their cybersecurity?" My view is simple. As organisations become more digital, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify treating cyber resilience as something that sits outside regular business discussions.

The local business news cycle has taken a dark and repetitive turn. Week after week, headlines are dominated by a relentless spike in organisations falling victim to sophisticated hacks, data breaches, and crippling ransomware attacks. From local municipalities to major political parties like the ANC, no sector seems immune.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority's (FSCA) call for a centralised anti-fraud hub at its 2026 conference reflects a timely recognition that South Africa's financial institutions (FIs) cannot successfully fight financial crime in isolation. However, centralisation alone is not enough.

Cyber risk is no longer a peripheral IT issue in African supply chains. Instead, it is becoming a core operational threat. According to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 70% of organisations report experiencing fraud or economic crime. Cyber-enabled fraud ranks among the fastest-growing categories globally, according to the ACCA Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey.

South African businesses have evolved alongside the reality of the country’s physical infrastructure challenges. Organisations instinctively build redundancies for power. These include solar installations, battery backup solutions, UPS systems and generators. When the grid fails, the failover system kicks in. Similarly, most businesses have multiple connectivity failovers because they understand operational disruption intimately.

Microsoft 365 is embedded in a significant number of South African organisations, but adoption doesn’t mean value. The difference between the two is showing up as cost and risk. There’s a reason companies invest in technology. It should deliver measurable gains across key areas such as productivity, cost and time savings, and operational optimisation.

In biology, a virus does not always destroy a cell from the outside. Instead, it injects genetic instructions into the host. It then hijacks the cell’s internal machinery. This process produces more viruses. In the digital world, prompt injection follows a similar logic. It operates with stealth and precision.