The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
Businesses in Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa have accelerated their cyber security due to the increased digital ways of working that have been necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report shows.
According to the Cyber Security Report 2021, a new research undertaken by leading pan-African technology group Liquid Intelligent Technologies, over 90 percent of information technology (IT) decision makers across these countries increased their cyber security due to the substantial emergence of digitalisation spurred by the pandemic.
The report reveals that 79 percent of businesses from all three countries attribute an increase in cyber security threats to the advent of remote working.
Data breaches like data extortion, data leakage and data disclosure constitute almost 71 percent of the cyber-attacks for Kenyan businesses.
It was also noted that over 70 percent of South African and Zimbabwean organisations consider email attacks like phishing the most prominent digital threats.
During a virtual launch of the report, Liquid Intelligent Technologies head of cyber security Mr Ignus de Villiers said more needs to be done in the region to enhance cyber securities at a time when businesses are increasing their presence in digital space.
“The result of our research confirms that cyber security should be at the center of every business conversation and emphasizes the need to establish an appropriate cyber security framework that matches the business environment.
“Critically, the framework must look beyond technical security controls to include information security management covering governance, risk, compliance, people, processes and technology,” he said.
Participants from the research also indicated an increased consumption of cloud-based services this year, with the numbers being as high as 96 percent for South Africa, 95 percent in Kenya and 75 in Zimbabwe.
This comes from a jump in use of Microsoft Office 365, Teams, Zoom, Google Workspace, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services.
As a result, cyber security threats and concerns seem to be increasing as the workforce continues to shift to working through digital platforms.
