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SA firms take nine months to detect data breaches

A human being can be conceived and brought into the world roughly the same time it takes for a South African small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) to become aware of and report a data breach.

That’s according to Jaco Voigt, Managing Director of PerfectWorx Consulting, a Cisco technology ecosystem provider. This timeframe broadly aligns with the 277 days mentioned in IBM’s 2022 data security report.

“The bad actors have become so sly that nothing happens immediately when one clicks on that dodgy link. A false sense of security is created, particularly at under-resourced smaller firms that often cobble together defences using consumer-grade cybersecurity solutions,” says Voigt.

“In my experience, stolen or compromised credentials are the most common cause of a data breach, and these attacks usually take the longest for local firms to identify.”

With people's behaviour within the business as the most significant security variable for early-stage firms, it’s clear that small businesses require an additional layer of automated breach protection.

Deploying cybersecurity protection at the DNS layer is where SMEs will experience the most immediate benefits. DNS layer protection essentially protects users from websites that host dangerous content.

When employees attempt to access problematic sites, and the SME has a solution like Cisco Umbrella enabled, the request to access the potentially dangerous site would be denied at the DNS layer. Rolling out a DNS layer cybersecurity solution is a practical first line of defence against phishing and the malware and ransomware attempting to access users’ devices via dangerous sites controlled by bad actors.

With these cloud-delivered cybersecurity solutions focused on unsafe webpages, smaller firms can gain a new layer of breach protection, in minutes, that also offers unparalleled internet-wide visibility.

Essentially, DNS layer solutions protect devices and users by controlling the transfer of information between such devices and the internet at large. “Over 30 000 local and overseas customers have found that Cisco Umbrella provides the quickest, most effective way to improve the SME’s security stack. Data breaches start – and end – at the DNS layer,” concludes Voigt.

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