Enterprise IT
SEACOM Launches SD-WAN Services in Kenya
Image sourced from the Design Quarter. SEACOM, a leading pan-African ICT service provider, is expanding to bring its software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) services to Kenyan businesses, offering reduced connectivity costs, increased security, agility, and local support to customers. SEACOM’s experience with ICT infrastructure in Africa is extensive; the company launched Africa’s first broadband submarine cable system in 2009 and provides continent-wide secure Internet. SD-WAN Solves Modern Network Problems for Businesses With the increased global adoption of cloud applications, mobile workforces, and voice and video communications becoming the new norm, traditional networks have been placed under significant pressure to meet increasing demands. Using a legacy network solution can ...
3 Biggest Wastes of Money When Investing in Digital Transformation, According to Expert
Digital transformation is a business imperative, yet many industries have struggled to put this into practical effect. Thanks to COVID-19, lockdown and forced work from home (WFH) restrictions, remote employees and clients’ expectations needed to be met in an unrestrained, highly competitive environment. Successful industries who invested in Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps) in 2020 will most certainly have seen a return on their investment – but how have they done this? “With COVID-19, everyone is seeing digital acceleration, but few organisations are tracking what their business outcomes are from these,” says James Anderson, research VP at Gartner. “Where are companies wasting money? They’re not using business metrics to influence investment. They’re doing what people tel...
Should More Companies Embrace Digital Self-Service?
Image sourced from Sourceforge. Counter to the tired comedy tropes about customers wishing they could “just speak to an actual human being”, most people would actually rather solve queries and problems themselves. In fact, research shows that more than two-thirds of customers prefer self-service over talking to a customer representative. That is, of course, assuming that they are enabled to effectively self-serve. COVID-19 has only accelerated that desire, taking self-service from a nice extra to a must-have. For obvious reasons, many people would rather help themselves via channels such as WhatsApp and social media chatbots than have to come into close contact with an assistant in a shop, branch, or office. Fortunately, with the emergence of intelligent digital experts, customers no longe...
Surging DDoS Attacks Drive Growing Demand for Third Party Protection Services
Image sourced from Shutterstock. As the global workforce largely shifted to work-from-home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, reliance on online services soared. Many businesses were able to successfully pivot to this new normal as remote connectivity allowed access to vital systems and data. But as is often the case, no good deed goes unpunished. As the latest NETSCOUT Threat Intelligence Report shows, cybercriminals have exploited new vulnerabilities created by remote work across a wide variety of vertical industries. Making matters worse, perpetrators no longer have to be particularly technology-savvy in order to pull off attacks. Today, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to access sophisticated attack tools via for-hire services: A cottage industry has sprung ...
Why Immutable Architecture is Key to Protecting Backup Data
Ransomware and other malware are a constant threat, and data backup is critical to safeguard a business’ most important asset. However, cybercriminals are increasingly targeting and encrypting backup data copies as well, a strategy that leaves organisations unable to recover unless they pay the ransom. Keeping an immutable copy of backup data is a best practice for data protection and is the solution in the event of a successful two-pronged ransomware attack. What is an immutable architecture? For data to be immutable means that it is unable to be changed over a period of time. With an immutable architecture, when retention policies are set for data backup and recovery, data will be secured, locked and unchangeable for that retention period. This in turn means that it cannot be encrypted b...
Why Unlocking Data is Setting CIOs Up for Success
Whilst companies used to build one to three-year transformation plans, today technological advancements and customer expectations are changing much faster. Everything companies do have to be driven by flexibility, agility and customer-centricity. Connecting with and serving customers, building the right data architecture, and embedding an open data culture throughout the organisation are all part of digital transformation. It also entails training its workforce to effectively and transparently share and leverage data. In many cases, it is not technology that is holding companies back. Rather, this is caused by the ways in which companies have set up their systems to handle data. According to MuleSoft’s 2020 Connectivity Benchmark Report, 85% of organisations admit that integration challeng...
ProLabs Explains Why 5G Mobile Networks are ‘Fibre Networks in Disguise’
Service providers are investing in 5G as it will deliver speeds approaching 10 gigabits per second. That is 600 times faster than standard 4G speeds, and more than 10 times faster than some residential fibre offerings. This is according to ProLabs, a global leader in optical networking infrastructure. The company notes that fibre optics have replaced copper for almost all links in the 5G networks used in delivering the required speed from the mobile antenna to consumers’ phones. Thus, “5G networks are really fibre optic networks with a short wireless connection at the end.” ProLabs is distributed in sub-Saharan Africa by value-added distributor, Networks Unlimited Africa. Craig Copeland, Networking and Storage Director at Networks Unlimited Africa, explains, “The fifth generation of mobile...
IFS Appoints New Non-Executive Board Director
IFS has announced the appointment of Hanna Jacobsson to its board as a non-executive director. The appointment is effective immediately and brings the current number of non-executive directors at IFS to six. As a finance executive and one of the most respected Actuaries in the Nordics, Jacobsson will lead the audit committee at IFS and deliver the focus and balance required to underpin a fast-growing business. Jacobsson, who specialised in finance in her early career as vice CFO roles at Skandia and group CFO at Nordea Life and Pensions, later expanded her remit to join Klarna as Chief Risk Officer. Now Board member of Skandia, Tink and DBT, her skills and experience are being drawn on by both large, established companies as well as earlier-stage ventures looking to scale. Her motivations ...
South Africans Think Software Update Time can be Used to Increase Productivity
Installing updates is considered a routine boring task, according to a study commissioned by Kaspersky. The research revealed that four-in-ten (47%) of South Africans admit that the time spent waiting for updates to take place can be used productively and they are making this a reality in their day-to-day lives. Updates to devices are not only necessary to gain access to new features or interfaces, but they also help to maintain a high level of security. Vendors regularly test their offerings to find new potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. The timely installation of updates can serve as an effective defence against cybercriminals. This downtime can also increase people’s productivity and help with well-being. South Africans agree that the time spent waiting for ...
Vital Pandemic Industries Foster Unprecedented DDoS Attack Activity
Netscout today announced findings from its bi-annual Threat Intelligence Report, punctuated by a record-setting 10,089,687 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks observed during 2020. Cybercriminals exploited vulnerabilities exposed by massive internet usage shifts since many users were no longer protected by enterprise-grade security. Attackers paid particular attention to vital pandemic industries such as eCommerce, streaming services, online learning, and healthcare generating a 20% year-over-year increase in attack frequency over 2019 plus a 22% increase in the last six months of 2020. In August, a threat actor Netscout dubbed Lazarus Bear Armada (LBA) launched one of the most sustained and extensive DDoS extortion campaigns yet seen, taking down the New Zealand stock exchan...
Double Bullseye for SentinelOne in Recent Prestigious Global Accolades
Stefan van de Giessen, General Manager: Cybersecurity at Networks Unlimited Africa SentinelOne’s endpoint security solutions came out on top among endpoint vendors in the latest ATT&CK Evaluation performed by MITRE Engenuity. Having recently released its results from the 2020 evaluation, SentinelOne was proud to report that it was the only vendor to achieve complete visibility, with zero missed detections, across both Windows and Linux environments. In addition, SentinelOne was also proud to announce that it has recently been positioned by Gartner as a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. SentinelOne believes the placement is a testament to the company’s innovative Singularity XDR platform and scaled go-to-market execution in record time. Over and ...
