Tag: cybersecurity

Your firewall cannot save you because the workplace it was designed to protect barely exists anymore. Employees work from anywhere. Applications sit in the cloud, while data moves between platforms and devices. Businesses also increasingly rely on third parties and connected services. The office may still have a firewall, but the business itself has long since moved beyond its walls.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly evolved from a novelty into a regular workplace tool. It helps with tasks such as drafting emails, summarising documents, coding, and data analysis. AI-powered platforms are changing how people work. As more employees use these tools, a less visible trend is emerging: the rise of shadow AI.

As businesses accelerate the use of generative AI tools, cybersecurity teams face a growing reality. Traditional Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls were never designed for the way employees now use Artificial Intelligence (AI). For years, DLP strategies focused on monitoring structured data. They tracked information moving through predictable channels such as email, USB devices, printing, and file transfers.

In many South African mid-market businesses, the IT team is now expected to operate with the discipline of an enterprise technology function. However, it must do so without the depth of resources that larger organisations can bring to bear. That leaves a small team moving between Microsoft 365 licensing, cloud workloads, user support, backup checks, endpoint protection, email security, connectivity issues, vendor escalations, procurement, compliance requests, and the first questions around AI governance.

The South African administrative state has acquired yet another hammer - digital traveller technology. Government departments appear now to assume that because something can be digitised, it should be digitised. Worse still, because information can be collected, it ought to be collected. SARS's compulsory new online “Traveller Declaration” system exemplifies this increasingly pervasive mindset.

As industrial automation becomes increasingly software-driven and AI-enabled, the channel partner's role is undergoing a profound shift. The next generation of partners will be evaluated not on the products they sell, but on their ability to design, integrate, and support outcome-based solutions in complex, connected environments.

South African businesses are not in the habit of replacing their hardware every year, nor should they be. While IT has evolved into a much more critical component of the modern enterprise, most businesses still have to reconcile their infrastructure needs with the capital they can allocate to it.

Attackers aren’t breaking in; they’re being invited, and the invitations are being written by the business. The easiest way to install malware on a business network is to persuade someone inside the business to do it. Attackers don’t always need to bypass the firewall or exploit a zero-day vulnerability. Sometimes, all it takes is a convincing email, a moment of misplaced confidence and trust.

In June, Meta experienced a global outage that disrupted Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services for users worldwide. The outage left many businesses temporarily unable to connect with customers through some of their most important digital channels. While the disruption was temporary, it highlighted the risks associated with relying too heavily on a single digital platform.

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.