Cyber Security

By john muraya

Cyber Security is no Longer an IT Problem But a Business Problem

The Chief Information Security Officer now has a seat at the decision makers table and the message to the rest of the board is that security is a shared responsibility. If policies and awareness measures are not spread across all departments, then there is little the IT team can do to ensure safety of the entire organization.

Gartner (2018) predicted that global spending for Information security would exceed 124 Billion dollars in 2019. Risk management and privacy issues within the Digital Transformation initiatives were cited among the reasons that will drive additional spending on security solutions through to 2020 in more than 40 percent of the organisations. Detection, response and privacy would be the main drivers for the need of cybersecurity solutions.

According to the National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team (2019), 11.2 Million Cyber threats were detected in the first quarter (Jan- March 2019), an increase of 10.1 percent compared to the previous quarter. Malware cases detected stood at 8.8 Million followed by Web application attacks at 1.2 Million. Botnet and DDoS attacks stood at 1.1 Million among others.

For the above reasons, it is important to know that an ISP like MTN Internet comes ready with DDoS protection so that you can enjoy your peace of mind. In 2017, Kenya lost about Ksh. 21.1 Billion to cyber crime which was an increase from 15.1 Billion in 2015 according to a 2017 Kenya Cybersecurity report. This gives us a rough idea of how much a cyber security breach can cost a business.

Cyber security experts are few in Kenya, and it is also very costly to constantly train and equip your available teams. Managed Security Services Provides (MSSPs) can take this burden off your company

In this era where different technology platforms are being used to drive business competitiveness, is your defense team well prepared to secure your platforms and safe guard you from losses?

Increased Cloud usage and moving devices on the network are like a double-edged sword. They favour businesses and employees by creating efficiencies and cost savings while at the same time exposing company networks to a lot of security risks.

They increase attack surfaces that enable cybercriminals to accomplish smarter attacks.

Is your defense team smarter? Cyber criminals are always willing to collaborate and share information freely compared to defense teams. This increases the sophistication of cyber criminals.

For your defense team to protect your company effectively, they have to outsmart the hackers. A hacker aims to win once but organisations must always win.

Given the above challenges, it is time for security and business management teams to shift to agile cloud delivered security solutions. Such solutions will simplify and increase intelligence of security architectures away from the rigid traditional appliance based-point solutions that can no longer cope with the rising sophistication of cyber-attacks. It is time to implement solutions that provide prevention, detection, investigation, and response to safeguard businesses from losses.

Cyber security experts are few in Kenya, and it is also very costly to constantly train and equip your available teams. Managed Security Services Provides (MSSPs) can take this burden off your company.

MTN is a Managed Security Service Provider with certified security experts and has partnered with top cyber security providers who continuously and heavily invest on Research and Development to ensure clients are always covered affordably.

John Muraya, is a Senior Manager: Solutions Architect at MTN Business. For any enquiries call 020 7600600 or email: yello.ke@mtn.com