In the past year, South Africa has seen a surge in data breaches that have paralysed major corporations and government organisations alike.
By Michael Langeveld, head of technology and business development at HPE Emirates and Africa
These crippling incidents have revealed sensitive information, causing significant reputational damage and financial losses, often amounting to tens of millions of Rands. To put it simply, it’s no longer a matter of whether your organisation will be hit, but rather when.
With Interpol confirming that the volume, frequency, and impact of ransomware attacks continues to grow in Africa, the need for robust data protection and recovery strategies has never been more critical. Organisations must prioritise proactive measures to safeguard their operations and minimise the impact of inevitable breaches.
Preparing for increasing threats
National research indicates that nearly 47% of South African organisations experience between one and five cyber incidents annually. These threats are not just increasing in number but are also becoming more sophisticated, leaving many local businesses on the back foot.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, this low level of cybersecurity preparedness is costing countries a significant percentage of their GDP. It’s clear that organisations need to ensure they have sophisticated recovery strategies in place.
With AI introducing more complex threats to a constantly changing security environment, South African organisations need to reassess their cyber security strategy as an essential foundation. There are many ways to protect company data and infrastructure, depending on the company’s desired security stance and aims as an organisation.
Protection at the boundary aims to stop threats from entering by monitoring and controlling communications and preventing unauthorised access to data with firewalls and gateways.
However, if threat actors want to gain access to your data, they’re going to find a way, and much like a game of chess, the key is to be one move ahead to avoid the fatal checkmate.
Recovering from cyber attacks
If we assume that at some point, we’ll lose a chess piece, it’s critical to have a game strategy that enables the quickest possible recovery. Following a precise and clear pre-planned ‘playbook’ will give IT teams immediate reassurance under the pressure of an attack. The objectives are then to recover and restore data as quickly as possible.
The recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) are important metrics when considering a disaster recovery plan. The RPO refers to the most recent point in time that data is available to recover from – ideally, we want this to be as recent as possible.
The RTO refers to the amount of downtime before operations are back up and running – ideally, we want this to be as low as possible. Adopting a cyber security solution that fits these objectives is the best way of ensuring the organisation gets back up and running as quickly as possible.
A comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity solution will offer the best protection, allowing organisations to recover quickly, as well as test their systems regularly. Ideally, the solution selected should provide considerable resilience, offering continuous data protection, fully automated and orchestrated recovery, frequent testing, patch management and enhanced encryption detection.
With these elements in place, businesses can achieve mere seconds of RPO and rapid restoration of data.
A cyber recovery vault is also key in this game – an offline, locked down vault that offers air-gapped recovery. This room of data is disconnected from the IT environment and allows companies to recover from the point of impact within a short space of time.
Some recovery vaults also combine an immutable data vault with an isolated recovery environment. This ensures that, once created, data cannot be modified or deleted and provides a clean environment from which to recover data.
Where to start
If organisations are unsure about how to initiate a disaster recovery or cyber security plan, it is a good idea to seek expert guidance to assess the current environment, security stance, and desired outcomes. Companies can significantly benefit from consulting with specialists who can then develop tailored solutions to enhance their security posture and prepare them for future challenges.
Winning the game of data protection requires defenders to be prepared for almost any scenario, including defeat. Business leaders must face sophisticated threats by investing in advanced cybersecurity measures that include an agile recovery plan.
With the right tools and expertise, organisations can defend against cyberattacks, recover swiftly, and minimise damage. It’s a game of strategy, foresight, and relentless vigilance — those who are prepared will ultimately win the match.