South African firms raise spend against cyber attacks
by SAVIOUS KWINIKA
JOHANNESBURG – BUSINESSES in South Africa plan to increase cyber security budgets by 22 percent in the next three years.
According to business representatives, the top five factors driving information technology (IT) security budget increases in South African organisations are business expansion, the need to boost the level of expertise of IT security specialists, recent cyber security incidents, increasing complexity of IT infrastructure and new risks due to geopolitical and economic uncertainty.
Global cyber security company, Kaspersky, noted the budget increases would also help to counter the IT security issues that organisations currently face.
Its survey showed that 61 percent of businesses in South Africa reported the high cost of securing complex technology hardware and software to be the most challenging issue.
Some 48 percent of local businesses reported problems with data protection.
They experienced loss or exposure of corporate or customer data. Then follows issues with suffering downtime and loss of productivity (41 percent), low cyber security skills of employees (40 percent), cloud infrastructure adoption (33 percent), and business process outsourcing (22 percent).
“Business continuity is ever depending on information security,” said Ivan Vassunov, Vice President, Corporate Products at Kaspersky.
“Nowadays when infrastructure becomes more complex and cyber-attacks become more sophisticated, businesses are becoming more cyber aware and better understand the need for protecting every asset inside the organisation.”
The official said state regulations is another important factor influencing the growing budgets for information security.
“These organisations require businesses to keep their operations and data secure. Sometimes regulators tighten rules for the whole vertical market or industry,” Vassunov said.
South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy, is among the most targeted by cyber criminals.
– CAJ News
