Tag: social engineering

More than half of South African businesses were impacted by ransomware in 2022, according to a CSIR report on cybersecurity. If businesses don't implement adequate cybersecurity strategies, this percentage will increase as the country's reliance on digital technologies and the number of associated threats expand.

As organisations across the globe contend with an increasing number of cyberattacks, schools and higher learning institutions are looking for innovative and cost-effective ways to protect their students, staff, and data from breaches and ransomware.

Usually, as we move from one year to the next, we look at trends for the coming year so that we know what to expect. This is especially pertinent in the IT industry where things evolve at lightning speed. This is not so that we can invest in the latest and greatest for their own sake, rather it is to keep businesses relevant and competitive on their digital journeys, as well as to keep them safe from a cybersecurity perspective.

Passwords remain a risk, despite being one of the most common security measures around. The drive towards a ‘passwordless’ environment begins with a solution that can create, automate, protect and manage your existing passwords.

Cybersecurity education, through the use of anti-phishing training programs, is vital in a world where humans remain the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. Cybersecurity is a term on every businessperson’s mind, as the legal, financial and reputational implications of a breach are massive.

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.

At a time when hybrid working is normalised, many companies have taken to using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) that enables computers on the same corporate network to be linked together and accessed remotely even when employees are at home.

While phishing scams are nothing new and have not changed drastically since their inception several years ago, we have seen some changes in terms of the techniques used, as well as the sophistication of content. From a tech perspective, the general technology used to pull off these social engineering attacks remains the same.

The online world is embroiled in a war. Such a statement may seem exaggerated and dramatic, but the figures paint a different picture. In 2021, the FBI received 847,376 cybercrime complaints, equalling $7 billion in losses.

With technology integrated into every facet of an organisation, there are massive consequences if systems go down, regardless of the size or industry sector of a business. Over the years, I have seen my share of the IT challenges companies face daily. However, these extend beyond the operational to include cybersecurity concerns as well.