How vulnerable is SA's ICT infrastructure?
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 28 May 2015
While policies around cyber security are good to have, policy alone lacks the potential to quantify data, and countries need to establish what their ICT assets are - and what vulnerabilities lurk within them.
This is according to Ignus Swart, senior information security specialist: cyber defence unit, at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
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Ignus Swart |
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'We are failing at infosec'
By Nicola Mawson, ITWeb news editor.
Johannesburg, 28 May 2015
Local companies are failing at information security because they follow a tick-box compliance approach, said Reino Mostert, a security analyst at Telspace Systems.
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Reino Mostert |
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Why infosec projects bomb
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 28 May 2015
There are several reasons why information security projects don't succeed, and they are not generally due to technical issues, said Raymond du Plessis, managing consultant at Mobius Consulting.
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Raymond du Plessis |
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Syndicates wreak havoc in cyber space
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's portals editor.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
The prominent hacks that dominated South African headlines recently have been masterminded by syndicates and not the traditional organised crime groups, according to Jason Jordaan, principal forensic scientist at DFIRLabs.
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Jason Jordaan |
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Cyber risks and trends in Africa
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
Cyber crime statistics show Africa is at risk and the growth in Internet use is increasing that risk exponentially.
So said Yusuph Kileo, a cyber security and digital forensics expert from Tanzania, who spoke about "Pan African security initiatives - how to interface with initiatives on the continent", during ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand.
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Yusuph Kileo |
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Six steps to secure databases
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
There is much being spent on IT, but it is not being used to secure databases. This is ironic, as most of the data stolen by hackers resides in the database, said Craig Moir, MD of MyDBA, speaking at ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand, yesterday.
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Craig Moir |
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Closing the security gap
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
To deal with the security concerns of the future, we will need to close the gap between the security industry and the "real world", said Keren Elazari, security expert and Gigaom Research analyst, speaking at ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand, today.
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Keren Elazari |
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Threat intelligence, WiFi hacking and NSA playset
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
Commercial-grade threat intelligence, which the average firm buys to use inside the organisation, is useless, said Pete Shoard, head of cloud service product development at UK-based SecureData.
"The long and the short of it is that intelligence is a poor indicator that does not tell you anything" about what's going on in the company, said Shoard.
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Pete Shoard |
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Don't trust cloud devices
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
While marketing material around certain personal cloud devices indicates they are entirely secure, independent security researcher Jeremy Brown begs to differ.
The security expert recently spent four days hacking three personal cloud devices, namely Western Digital's My Cloud, Akitio's MyCloud and Seagate Central.
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Jeremy Brown |
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SA lacks cyber security culture
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's portals editor.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
South Africa lacks a cyber security culture, as the country is yet to implement some of the critical policies adopted by the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Data Protection.
That was the word from professor Basie von Solms, director of the Centre for Cyber Security at the University of Johannesburg, speaking during ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand, yesterday.
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Basie von Solms |
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Thinkst unveils honeypot tool
By Jon Tullett, Editor: News analysis
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
Thinkst Applied Research has released an intrusion detection sensor intended to provide quick and effective detection of malicious activity on a network. The Canary product is a customised honeypot that can mimic a genuine network resource, like a fileserver or router, waiting for signs that an intruder is looking for vulnerable targets. It then alerts operators, thus avoiding the need to filter logs looking for warning signs.
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Convergence creates challenges
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
With the explosion of interconnected devices and sensors, dubbed the Internet of things (IOT), there is a drive to leverage the reach and power of the Internet to enable new intelligent interactions between IT and operational technology (OT).
So said Samresh Ramjith, chief solution and marketing officer at Dimension Data Security Solutions MEA, speaking at ITWeb Security Summit 2015.
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Samresh Ramjith |
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Major threats appear 'just like that'
By Nicola Mawson, ITWeb news editor.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
Major malware threats can appear overnight and cause serious damage to companies before they even take steps to counter them.
This is according to Kevin McKerr, security sales lead at IBM SA, who addressed delegates at ITWeb Security Summit 2015 yesterday, in Midrand.
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Kevin McKerr |
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Security is a shared goal
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 27 May 2015
Trying to get management buy-in is a perennial struggle for IT professionals, said Kris Budnik, MD of Slva Information Technology, speaking at ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand, yesterday.
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Kris Budnik |
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SA a target for DDOS
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's portals editor.
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
South Africa is the most targeted country in Africa when it comes to distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.
This was revealed by Vernon Fryer, chief technology security officer at Vodacom, in a keynote address during ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand, this morning.
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Vernon Fryer |
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Face of mobility changing
By Kirsten Doyle
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
Think back three to four years ago, when smartphones were fairly niche. There was a lack of choice from a handset perspective, and less availability of tools to manage mobile environments.
So said Paulo Ferreira, enterprise mobility director at Samsung Mobile South Africa, discussing enterprise mobility security considerations at ITWeb Security Summit 2015 in Midrand this morning.
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Paulo Ferreira |
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Perimeter defence is dead
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
"Perimeter defence is dead," said Patrick Gray, security analyst and producer of the Risky Business security podcast, at ITWeb Security Summit 2015, in Midrand.
Traditional security solutions such as intrusion detection systems are proving less and less effective, he explained. Threat monitoring systems can either return a deluge of false alarms or miss necessary alerts entirely, he added.
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Patrick Gray |
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Govt snooping highlights need for Tor
By Kirsten Doyle, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
The National Security Agency spying scandal, through its PRISM programme, in June 2013, highlighted the need for individual privacy advocates to protect their communications from snooping eyes.
Enter the Tor Project, created in 2006 as a non-profit organisation aimed at keeping everyone safe on the Internet.
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Roger Dingledine |
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Binney: the NSA is destroying democracy
By Martin Czernowalow, Group Investigative Editor.
Johannesburg, 26 May 2015
The US's National Security Agency is destroying democracy by collecting data on everyone in the world, says the agency's former technical director, William Binney. This, he says, is a situation he feels partly responsible for.
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William Binney |
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