911 – what’s your emergency?

If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to hear those faithful words. However, based on the fact that in the USA alone, more than 2.7 million calls (or one every 11 seconds) to 911 were made, you can never rule out needing help in an emergency.

The numbers aren’t better closer to home, as any South African (or ex South African posting angry statuses from New Zealand) can attest to. Looking at just Gauteng, the average cases by year are shocking:

• Shoplifting/Commercial Crime: 593 205
• Theft/Burglary: 126 844
• Murder/Assault/Robbery: 177 737
• Housebreaking: 260 000

We have some of the highest crime rates in the world and, as such, face our own share of risks on the daily. Sadly, many of us have come to accept that calling a hotline may not be the fastest or most effective means of getting help. People in danger often need an immediate response – and taking the time to explain the problem to an operator may cost you precious seconds.

Most of us have been in a situation where that split second could have made all the difference – both during said emergency and afterwards. And, in those precious moments (particularly in an accident), the knowledge that a loved one is on their way makes a world of difference.

Enter Vox 911, an app designed to make the ‘worst-case scenarios’ a tiny bit easier.

The app essentially turns your smartphone into a portable, easy to access mobile panic button AND tracking system, meaning not only can you sound the alarm, but the relevant individuals can easily locate you no matter where you are. You can raise the panic system within seconds (it literally takes the touch of a button) and, whether an accident or the sound of an intruder in the house, the relevant authority will be instantly notified.

It’s not a case of your loved ones only finding out later either. You’re able to load multiple family members under a single account, who can then receive SMS notifications the moment an alert is sent out. The 911 member just has to press the speed-dial button to be connected to our Vox911 Call Centre, which then uses caller ID to identify who you are and let your listed recipients know.

Medical, roadside assistance, armed response (yes, we have a team, and they’re pretty capable), it doesn’t matter – they’ll be dispatched and en-route as soon as you need them.

From help at the click of a button to location tracking, voice recording and 24/7 availability, you can rest assured that we’ve got your back should you ever need it. And, let’s face it, any parent with kids can rest easier knowing that should disaster strike, they won’t be left sitting in the dark.

You’re probably wondering which of your cars you’ll need to mortgage to afford this service? Please, this is Vox we’re talking about, and your safety shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. Users can choose between month-to-month and 24-month users from as little as R118.75pm (including VAT) – a small price to pay for what’s essentially your own personal response team.

Truth be told, nothing will ever prevent the inevitable, but you can be prepared when that worst-case scenario does arise.

Shop Wi-Fi Security Cameras

Your home is your castle, and in the 21^st century, the right home security cameras will act as your high-tech moat. It’s a little more subtle, but it works.

Smart home tech is on the rise.

Sure, we’re not quite living in the future the Jetsons had us believing we would be just yet. But we do have fridges that let us know when the milk is about to expire and apps that allow us to control the lighting and temperature in each room of our home.

And that’s just for starters.

According to Statista, spending in the smart home industry will top 170 billion US dollars by 2025, with over 400 million smart homes globally.

If we had to choose the most exciting innovation in smart home tech, it would have to be the home security camera.

Whether you’re a homeowner, renting a place or looking to keep an eye on your holiday home, there’s a security camera solution to suit every need.

The products themselves will only get better. And renting home security cameras is the easiest way take advantage of those tech upgrades. Renting gives you the flexibility to scale your solution up or down without blowing your budget.

Wired vs Wireless Wi-Fi Cameras

When it comes to home security cameras, you have three main types to choose from. Wired cameras connect to the Internet via Ethernet cable, wireless cameras connect directly to your Wi-Fi network, but need to be connected to a power supply. Wire-free cameras don’t need any cabling at all, they rely on batteries for power and connect via Wi-Fi.

Of the three, wired cameras offer the most stable connections, but need professional installation. Wireless and wire-free cameras are a lot more DIY and a great solution if you’re renting or looking to add security somewhere temporarily.

After that, you’ll need to decide if you want indoor or outdoor surveillance or both. Outdoor cameras need to be durable enough to deal with a range of temperatures and weather conditions, and this is where an IP66 rating (or higher) makes all the difference.

Security Cam Essentials

So, you’d like add security cameras to your home. The good news is, as mentioned above, there’s a home security camera to suit every home and need, indoors and out. Not only are they great for acting as a deterrent to potential thieves and intruders, they’re also allow you to keep an eye on your home, inside and out in real-time, at the touch of a button via your smartphone.

There are a few non-negotiables worth keeping in mind, though. The first: image resolution. If you can’t see what’s happening on screen, what’s the point of having a camera? Never settle for anything less than full HD image quality at 1080p – this way, you’ll always have a clear view of what’s going on.

It’s also a good idea to choose a camera with a wide field of vision to give you the big picture and the best idea of what’s happening in your surroundings at all times. Better still, opt for a camera with pan/tilt functionality and zoom capabilities so you never miss a thing.

While we’re on the subject of image quality, placing your cameras in well-lit areas is also key to ensuring you get the clearest view possible. To keep an eye on your home 24/7, infrared lighting and anti-glare are essential to staying in the know and out of the dark.

The Nice-to-Haves

Having a range of storage options to choose from also ensures you’ll have access to the footage you need, when you need it. While some cameras include the option of saving footage to a microSD card or your own network via a Network Video Recorder (NVR), most suppliers will offer encrypted cloud storage on subscription. The best solution? A device that offers all three storage options for the ultimate backup and redundancy.

What if your camera not only allowed you to hear what was happening outside, but talk back too? And it included a booming siren and strobe light as added deterrents? Look no further than our Wi-Fi Cameras.

Our Guardian Eye range of home security cameras check all the boxes and include all the (sometimes literal) bells and whistles but remain accessible via a choice of rental plans to suit almost any budget.

Because there really is no place like home.

Lately, it seems like everyone from T-Mobile to Uncle Cyril is learning about external business threats the hard way.

Seriously, with Virgin Active being hit, we normal folk need to be on high alert. If it were us, we’d hack something a bit less dangerous like the National Chess Association, but messing with the gym queuing system at 5am just shows that cyber criminals are not playing around.

The scary part, however, is that it’s not only distant businesses from faraway lands which are being targeted.

Here are some of the biggest (and most notorious) hacking scandals of the last year alone.

• In Jan 2020, Travelex needed to be pulled offline due to Malware attacks.
• Estee Lauder: 440 million (think of how many that is) individual records were released.
• Mitsubishi: their May 2020 Data breach led to their missile designs (we know!) being stolen.
• Google: They mitigated the largest attack in history, a 2.54 Tbps DDos.
• Home Depot: this US Retailer had to pay a $17.5 million settlement to release their Data.
• ABSA: A rogue employee led to personally identifiable customer information being leaked.

But our personal favourite? The revelation that 10 000 South African Android Users were identified as being compromised just last month. We know, it may sound like doom and gloom, but we’re not one for the ostrich method of burying our heads in the sand – Data theft is real, and unless your business has about $17.5 million to pay on ransom fees (in which case, look us up), a breach in safety could also be the endgame. And we don’t mean the cool Avengers vs Thanos type either.

Okay, cool – but that’s just digital, and I have a Firewall. So what must happen?

Well, the last few years have been challenging, with many organisations struggling to stay afloat even prior to the pandemic. Enter the incredibly disruptive socio-economic climate we still find ourselves battling today, and pretty much everyone has had to rethink their business models.

Covid-19 happened. Level 5 happened. Eskom happened. Things stabilised, then came back in December. They went away. They came back. As if that weren’t enough, the third wave made an appearance in July, along with some new restrictions from Uncle Cyril. Well, it can’t get worse, right? Wrong. Enter looting and riots, which had a devastating impact on KZN and a knock-on effect on other provinces, almost bringing the country to its knees. It felt like the end times, but thankfully we survived – yet that week alone cost an estimated 0.7% of our National GDP in damages.

Be it strategy, operations, the supply chain or ground staff, everything changed, yet as South Africans we have this inherent ability to rebuild, work smarter and establish a way to persevere. In fact, we thrive on competitiveness and an opportunity to be resilient, so on we push.

But what does any of this have to do with Data Storage?

Well, all these events have served only as a reminder of the fragility of running a business. In a second, things can change. Be it the Macro-environment, political landscape or a hacker behind a keyboard, our business world is vulnerable and faces ever-looming threats on all sides.

With this in mind, it is paramount that organisations operate with the mindset of intelligent solutions which can withstand said external circumstances.

It’s one thing to rebuild, but how can we do it smarter?

This is not for the sake of making more money, but rather to lay a foundation capable of handling any future turmoil.

Consider, for example, the damage caused by looting. These events have shown us that the old ways are completely perishable, and as such we should now strive for the ability to connect from anywhere, anytime and pick up where you left off – or, better yet, being able to instantly recover your business information in the event of disruption (with minimal interference). The goal of any brand should be resilience and non-dependence on external circumstances.

How many times have we as a nation heard the words “my fellow South Africans”, and had our entire economic landscape turned on its head (literally overnight)? It’s been long enough and frequent enough that the ability to continue working on short notice and allowing normal service to resume should be a natural part of the process.

In fact, an informed organisation is one which looks at current events and asks itself how technology, software and intelligence can play a role in protecting itself moving forward.

The answer, of course, lies in the Cloud (and no, we don’t mean going to heaven)

Designing an effective Cloud strategy not only reduces your costs and allows for accessibility, flexibility and scalability, but also incorporates the principles of backup and recovery as part and parcel of its foundations. You as a business can access your info whenever, wherever, which has become the most fundamental component of ensuring that today’s business even has a tomorrow.

If anything, the recent disruption has forced us all to introspect while propelling our humble nation on a similar trajectory as its first world counterparts (when it comes to Cloud, at least). One of the most remarkable things about this entire pandemic was that it created an almost level playing field – changing mindsets, circumstances, ushering in a universal era of adaptation.

We’ve written a million words about Cloud (which you can find here), but an empowered modern business cannot afford to overlook the most modern solution available.

Whereas the brands of yesteryear needed a strong physical presence to survive, today’s organisations require the ability to flip the switch and keep moving forward. It’s tough enough running a business without the added damage of Data Theft, breaches or damage.

We’ve all learned some hard lessons these last few years but, for us, the one that stands out most is that information is priceless – and so too is the need to protect it.

Knowing where your data is stored and who has access to it is absolutely crucial for doing business in the age of data privacy regulation. Welcome to Vox Security Level 3.

These days, Cyber Security is about more than just making sure your data is safe from encryption and Ransomware demands – that said, as cyber-attacks continue to take down everyone from international cloud service providers to Northern Ireland’s entire healthcare system and everyone in between, those are definitely still a concern – it’s also very much about maintaining the integrity of the sensitive, private or personal information you rely on for day-to-day business operations.

With the PoPI (Protection of Personal Information) Act now in effect in South Africa, a data breach that threatens to make public the private, personal information of your customers and clients won’t just result in embarrassing headlines and reputational damage for your company, but also a hefty fine or possible jail time or both – for you.

As we continue to transition to hybrid work solutions and conduct most of our lives via apps and cloud computing, putting proactive procedures in place to know exactly where your most valuable data is stored and who has access to it should be a vital component of your Cyber Security plan.

It All Begins with Data Discovery

Modern work environments need to remain flexible to survive whatever the world may throw at them next – but this means Cyber Security teams need to worry about an exponential number of endpoints (from company laptops, to employees’ personal smartphones and tablets), external servers, databases and shared files when attempting to protect the integrity of sensitive or regulatory data and remain compliant with government regulations.

Most often used for data analytics, data discovery involves collecting and connecting structured and unstructured data from multiple sources (individual PCs and laptops, shared drives, social media), assessing it’s importance to the company as a whole, categorising it and placing it into context both manually and via business analytics tools.

All data is not created equally.

Once you’re able to place your most sensitive business data into context via Information Rights Management, you can begin to implement a successful Data Loss Prevention strategy that won’t bring your business to a standstill with time-consuming privacy policies and permissions put in place for every user.

Locking That Data Down

With a data loss prevention strategy in place, your security experts will be able to monitor the protection of everything from personal information to intellectual property and financial records whether it’s in use (via the endpoint), in motion (travelling via your network) or at rest (stored in the cloud).

To ensure your data loss prevention strategy is effective, protocols should be put in place to monitor and prevent the loss of sensitive data leaving your network across everything from downloads to external hard drives, email attachments and cloud storage.

Knowing what type of information you have, where it’s stored and how it’s being used will strengthen your ability to protect it and the integrity of your company by helping to prevent data leaks from happening intentionally, or, more often than not, accidentally, and having devastating consequences for you and the future of your business.

These four elements are non-negotiable when it comes to keeping your business safe from cyber harm. We’ve optimised them even further with our Level 1 Security offering.

If you’re just getting in on the ground floor of Cyber Security for your business, or if you’re looking to reinforce that foundation, look no further than Vox’s Level 1 Security offering. Each element has been carefully chosen to provide the ultimate defence against Ransomware – the bane of businesses everywhere, but statistically speaking, small to medium enterprises most of all.

Having a dedicated team of security experts and world-class tech to watch your back might seem out of reach, but by outsourcing this critical component, companies of all sizes can rest easy in the knowledge that their most valuable assets are secure and proactively protected at all times.

Email Security

Over 306 billion emails were sent and received in 2020, and that number is expected to grow to 376 billion by 2025. It’s no wonder email phishing attacks are on the rise – and becoming more sophisticated by the day. Thanks to its ability to bypass Firewalls, a company’s email acts as the main portal for malware, accounting for 95% of all infections, which means email security should be a top priority when it comes to preventing costly Ransomware attacks.

A dedicated email security solution safeguards against the risk of everything from malware to inbox-clogging spam, phishing emails, DHA (Directory Harvest Attack) and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks as accidental data leaks. All of which can bring your business to a grinding halt as your essential data is literally taken hostage/encrypted and held for ransom.

Endpoint Security

This is not your grandmother’s Anti-virus solution. Not only do we offer Endpoint protection across all devices connected to your business, our top level offering, EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), incorporates AI (Artificial Intelligence) to understand an application’s behaviour, and isolates infected machines while attempting to roll back the attack to discover its point of entry, without having to wait for any software updates.

Where EDR really shines is in the prevention of Zero Day Attacks – where hackers waste no time in finding any unknown software weakness or flaw ripe for exploitation before a patch can be made.

Network Security

Firewalls are your first line of defence when it comes to protecting your network from any unauthorised access and, like Endpoint Security, they’ve evolved to meet the demands made on them by 21^st century threat actors.

Next-generation firewalls can provide real-time views into your network activity as well as actionable application and risk dashboards and reports, all without sacrificing any of your network performance. More than just a barrier between your network and online threats, next generation firewalls, are purpose-built and scalable, including everything from VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) for data encryption and remote working opportunities to application control and advanced threat protection.

In the face of a Ransomware attack, a Next-generation firewall cuts malware off at the knees by preventing it from connecting to the hacker’s control server and exchanging encryption keys to begin encrypting your data.

Managed Backup

Should all of the above fail – because anything that can and will happen, usually does – then your ultimate insurance policy against a Ransomware attack is a data backup and recovery plan. By keeping a copy of your data safely stored in a separate location, you’re not only shielding yourself from having to pay ransom for access to your data, with an efficient recovery plan in place, you’re also ensuring business can carry on as usual without the need for costly downtime.

That said, a backup solution is something that needs to be monitored constantly – not only to ensure your backups are error-free and constantly updated, but also to guarantee it’s free from malware too.

Clearly, when it comes to Cyber Security, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.