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From the editor's desk: Cyber configuration conundrum

As Hi-Tech Security Solutions prepares for its first ever handbook dedicated to cybersecurity, I have been surprised at the reason for many of the breaches. I’m using ‘breach’ in a generic sense to include any type of hack, ransomware or data theft in this scenario.

The criminals’ best friends are employees who click on email attachments. On the one hand this can lead to a fake website where the individual’s personal information is collected, or it can install malware on the individual’s computer. This malware then talks to its owners and downloads more, allowing it to spread across the company. There have been numerous examples of this in the past year – and this is one thing we can’t blame on the pandemic.

Andrew Seldon, Editor.

When it comes to cloud services, especially hosting company applications and data in a remote data centre, there seems to be a general feeling that the hosting company is responsible for your cybersecurity. This is not true at all. You are responsible for your cybersecurity. Even in cloud companies like Google or Amazon, while they have certain responsibilities with respect to cybersecurity, which incorporates a lot of physical security at the data centre locations, many breaches have happened because the company’s IT administrator/s have ‘left the doors open’.

Many have simply failed to select the options to secure their data and applications, or haven’t configured it correctly. So while protection was there for them to use, actually made easy for them to use, they didn’t. This could be due to lack of knowledge, carelessness or the security was deactivated so that it was easier to get some work done for an admin (always a bad idea), and nobody thought to reactivate afterwards.

Our desire for immediate gratification today in almost every aspect of our lives has led to convenience being the primary focus of everyone, from the Googles of the world to Joe Shmo and his malware infested cellphone.

If you would like more information on our Smart Cyber Solutions Handbook, drop me a mail and I will send you the brief. As this is the first edition we are starting by looking at the basics of cybersecurity, focusing on network, application, cloud as well as IoT and edge security, with a special focus on ransomware. And there will be a few other sections of interest.

Also worth mentioning is that the government has passed the 51% local ownership law for private security companies. It’s not worth asking the last one out to switch off the lights as the 100% locally-owned Eskom is doing that for us, but it may be interesting to follow the money (before it gets stolen).

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