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Securing your packets

Welcome to the April issue of Hi-Tech Security Solutions. At the time of writing, nearly 25% of the year is already gone and it feels like we only started a couple of weeks ago. We have a jam-packed issue for you this month. In fact, the jam leaked and we had to save some editorial for our e-zines. Whatever is happening in the rest of the economy, the security sector seems to be ticking along nicely.

What is especially nice to hear is that there are a couple of international companies that are looking at spreading their wings in the country. Many still consider South Africa a springboard into the rest of the continent. Naturally, many local companies are also spreading their wings northwards.

In this issue we take a brief look at the Postbank saga. Fortunately the perpetrators seem to have been particularly careless in their execution of the R43 million virtual heist and they have been nabbed – or some of them at least.

We also look at the thorny issue of protecting your infrastructure – part of the article is in the magazine, the rest you will find online. Even as more IP networks are used to transmit security data, some integrated with the corporate network, I found it strange that the people I spoke to were not in the least bit concerned about securing their infrastructure. An unsecured IP network is an easy win for someone trying to get into your network.

We also take a look at the problem of data protection. The round-table we held covered so much information we could only provide a brief introduction in our report back. Once again, people seem to put data security at the bottom of the priority list. Some seem to think a hacker would not be interested in their data and company, but what about malware? Never mind your intellectual property, customer lists and business plans; if you are connected to the Internet, you can easily provide a cyber crook with a node on his botnet which can be used for spam or malware attacks.

I also had an interesting conversation recently about the European financial meltdown. It seems it is already having an impact locally. Apart from a very cautious approach to spending money by many EU businesses, they seem to be having trouble selling themselves in those few parts of Africa that do not speak Mandarin.

Someone mentioned that a country that was ‘well inclined’ to German products and companies in the past has decided Europe is too unstable to risk spending money with them. It now prefers to opt for Chinese products and services. Seems like my learning German was not such a good idea after all. How times change.

Andrew

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