Tag: Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)

The global economy is facing challenges on many fronts, with inflation and recession becoming the words of the day. As a result, budgets that are always tight (like IT) are under even more scrutiny than before. Any unnecessary spending needs to be curtailed, for obvious reasons, but does data management fall into this category?

As technology continues to advance rapidly, governments worldwide are grappling with the need to regulate various aspects of the digital realm. South Africa, a leading economy on the African continent, has not been immune to this global trend.

There are various reasons why a company might want to comply with ISO 27001, with some looking to provide assurances to customers and partners that they are aligned with international best practices. Others want to show that they promote organisational improvement for regulatory reasons.

Don’t let your business be punished for, and by cyber fraud. As the business landscape rapidly evolves, a general awareness of security vulnerabilities is no longer enough. Cyber fraud, data and payment breach risks need to be managed urgently and strategically with the right tools. 

It was with great shock that the South African society learned about the rape of several women near Krugersdorp in July 2022. But what was more worrisome was the shock of the victims upon realising that their personal details such as names, residential addresses and occupations appeared on social media platforms!

ChatGPT is an OpenAI developed artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot which has been programmed to have advanced conversational capabilities. This means that the chatbot can answer questions and assist users with composing essays, emails and even writing code in response to certain inputs.

The buzzwords for the past two years have been future-forward with all-encompassing terms like 'digital transformation', 'Artificial Intelligence (AI)' and 'blockchain', but 2023 brings with it a sobering reality.

Employees are expected to remember and adhere to numerous policies, including privacy policies. Poster campaigns are rolled out to reinforce positive behaviour and still when we consider data breaches it is often unbelievable how the mistake that resulted in the breach could have possibly occurred.

Data management has traditionally not been high on the priority list for South African organisations, often seen as an afterthought and a grudge purchase. As the threat of ransomware has grown, this attitude is beginning to change.

The statistics make for worrying reading. According to our Data Protection Trends Report 2022, 97% of South African companies experienced an outage due to a cyberattack in the past 12 months. Of those, almost nine in 10 (86%) suffered a ransomware attack.