Commentary

“The cyber attack on the City of Joburg’s network once again puts the spotlight on cyber security and highlights how few organisations, irrespective of their size, are safe from an attack.

“Security is no longer a luxury. It is something that must take top priority not just amongst large corporates, but small to medium enterprises (SMEs) as well. Cyber security must be addressed at a board level and not left being ‘relegated’ to an IT decision-maker.

“Companies need to conduct an extensive audit of their entire IT environment, invest in getting the right cyber security infrastructure in place and ensure their systems are updated to factor in emerging threats. They also need to continually assess their ability to effectively deal with attacks.

“In our experience, most companies are not geared to repel any type of attack, much less recover effectively from one. It has become a case of businesses being sitting ducks.

“Very few SMEs really understand their vulnerabilities and it can be quite complex for them to secure themselves as best as possible. It really is a case of they do not know what they do not know.

“Cyber security at an organisation is not a snapshot in time but evolves as the threat landscape changes. Businesses must do more to educate themselves about the threats they face and take the necessary steps to protect themselves,” says Craig Freer, executive head of cloud and managed services at Vox.