Tag: data breach

The processing of personal data has become increasingly valuable and lucrative for businesses. It offers opportunities for economic growth, social advancement, and research. However, it can also pose risks to the rights of individuals, their basic human rights.

The cyberthreat landscape is constantly evolving, as cybercriminals continue to find vulnerabilities to exploit. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are a growing concern that businesses need to guard against. While these highly targeted attacks are as common as more broadly-targeted events, they are devastating when successful, exposing sensitive data that could ruin business reputation, not to mention causing compliance breaches.

With a month to go before the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) comes into effect on 1 July, many companies have left their compliance program to the last minute and may well miss the deadline for compliance. 

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) is a crucial statute for organisations to get right. Not only because the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is all about data and information but also because a breach of the POPI Act could result in imprisonment and fines.

The age-old adage of prevention is better than cure is becoming more and more relevant as organisations both transition to the cloud and manage the ever-increasing perimeter of people working remotely. To remedy your security woes, the questions you need to answer include: Do you know what your cybersecurity posture is, do you know where the gaps are that you are not considering, are you sure you are taking all the elements in your business into account when you are crafting your policies?

Cybersecurity for small business has come to the fore as more Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) shifted towards digitalisation to survive in the unstable by COVID-19 circumstances. Yet, shockingly, according to research from IBM and the Ponemon Institute released in 2020, a whopping two out of five companies in the United States and the United Kingdom with 50 or fewer employees do not have any type of cybersecurity defence plan in place.

According to our recent report, ‘How businesses can minimise the cost of a data breach’, enterprises in the META region with outdated technology can lose 16% more money when they suffer a data breach compared to those who update everything in a timely manner.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a highly volatile and uncertain environment for businesses resulting in a litany of new or heightened risks for directors and officers (D&O) as well as exacerbating the situation in an already strained D&O insurance market.

According to our new report, ‘How businesses can minimise the cost of a data breach’, enterprises in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) that decide to voluntarily inform their stakeholders and the public about a breach, on average, are likely to lose 38% less than their peers that saw the incident leaked to the media. The same tendency has also been found to be the case in SMBs.

Medium-sized companies in South Africa are in a precarious position in terms of cybersecurity. While they find themselves firmly in the crosshairs of cybercriminals, they also have limited options to successfully defend themselves against cyberattacks, as the challenges faced by this market segment are multifaceted.