Is your business leaving a gap for cybercriminals to attack?

Cybercrime is no longer a threat that businesses can ignore. Every year, our economy loses R2.2 billion to cybercrime incidents. This ranks South Africa as the eighth most targeted by ransomware in the world, making this one of the biggest business risks. Despite the increasing importance of cybersecurity, many businesses are not taking the problem seriously enough. Around 87% of South African organisations don’t have adequate cybersecurity skills in place to provide protection and only 22% of businesses plan to spend more on cybersecurity in the next three years.

It will take a concerted effort by South African industries to curb this problem, as it is a multifaceted issue. Firstly, there is a shortage of cybersecurity professionals on a worldwide scale. In South Africa, this skills shortage is even more concerning, with currently less than 60 000 local cybersecurity professionals that can address the cybercrime onslaught.

Secondly, people are a high-risk factor. Various cybercrimes use forms of social engineering, also known as human hacking. These involve incidents where cybercriminals gain confidential information, get access to restricted areas, or influence individuals to perform certain actions through psychological manipulation tactics. Taking South Africa’s high adoption rates of technology into account, such as the internet, smartphones, and social media, make employees that are not tech-savvy a very real liability (Source: ITWeb).

What is even more concerning is that not only businesses can fall victim to cybercriminals. Recently, the South African government revealed that a staggering cybercrime syndicate was discovered, which has been responsible for stealing over R300 million from the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.

Thirdly, new technology always provides new opportunities for cybercriminals. AI-assisted attacks have been increasing worldwide and deep-fake videos, emails, and images are misleading online users across the globe.

The hard facts of hardware security

There is, however, an area that many corporates overlook when it comes to cybersecurity. Many businesses focus on ensuring their network is protected, software programmes are secure, and firewalls are in place. The fact is that the hardware your business uses is just as important.

Hardware security refers to the actual physical device that employees use and the protections that are in place – from proxy servers, cryptographic keys, system scanners, and hardware firewalls (Source: TechTarget). In addition, a business’s physical systems are also protected from harm with computing and networked non-computing devices.

The reliability, effectiveness, and detection of potential cybersecurity threats are closely aligned with the model and make of the physical device, such as employee laptops. These laptops are essentially seen as entry points for cybercriminals. Only utilising software tools to protect your business and ignoring physical end-user devices leaves a gap in your IT security strategy.

The reason why many South African businesses do this, even though they might be aware of the risks, is that constantly replacing a company’s entire end-user infrastructure can be extremely costly. Technology is ever-evolving, improving, and being upgraded. While this is beneficial when it comes to cybersecurity measures, the same is not true for a business’s cash flow.

Surprisingly, there is a simple, cost-effective solution that solves both the problem of a pressurised cash flow and an increasing risk to cybercrime attacks.

Increase your cybersecurity and cashflow

Instead of businesses purchasing IT equipment, asset finance solutions give companies an opportunity to keep up with technology and, therefore, cybersecurity standards. When a company purchases IT assets, such as desktops, laptops, and servers, it is not only investing in depreciating assets but spending cash that could’ve been used more effectively in another critical area of the business.

With RentWorks, you have an IT asset finance solutions partner that can help you run your business operations with the most up-to-date tech, enabling your business to have improved cybersecurity while having more available cash flow. Our track record of over 25 years and growing customer base of South African businesses speak for itself.

Don’t wait until it’s too late and your business becomes a cybercrime target. Speak to one of our RentWorks specialists about our deal structuring, asset management and disposal offerings. Simply visit the RentWorks the website or call +27 11 549 9000.