Exponential increases in cyber crime and fraud are driving a growing need for expert digital forensics and cyber security support in South Africa – not only to mitigate risk, but also to successfully prosecute perpetrators.
This is according to Forbes Karinda, Information Security Manager at Sourceworx, who says most organisations lack the resources and skills to stay ahead of cyber crime in-house.
He says: “The growing sophistication of diverse cyber threats drives continuous evolution of the cyber security landscape. Due to operational commitments, organisations tend to be left behind and in need of guidance on how to navigate this domain.
“Data is the new gold, so all data is invaluable. This encompasses individual data, transactional data, product data, advertising data and all company data, and every entity is a potential target. Everyone should always be vigilant in securing their digital environments and no business is too small to attract hackers. If a business has made it through the past few years without a data breach, they cannot be confident that all their IT infrastructure and systems are secure and up to standard. It either means they have been hacked, but they just don't know about it, or are yet to be hacked,” Karinda says.
“Continuous investment in cyber security is crucial to manage vulnerabilities that will continuously emerge. Security is an investment in the future of your company, the safety of customer information, the company’s goodwill as well as compliance with regulatory requirements,” he says.
Resource gaps in digital forensics
Karinda notes that there is a skills and resource gap in cyber security skills, particularly in the domain of cyber forensics. To successfully investigate and prosecute digital crimes requires expert knowledge, international best practice methodologies and costly equipment, he says, therefore few – if any – companies have these skills in-house.
Unskilled efforts to investigate hacks or internal fraud could do more harm than good, he explains. “It takes expertise to properly identify the evidence, extract it correctly and then follow the whole digital forensics process for that to be admissible in a court of law. For example, an IT team member might realise someone is using a company PC to post malicious content to the internet. They might decide to simply switch off the device and bag it. However, in the process of switching it off, they might actually destroy some evidence that we would have been able to extract from that laptop. To be admissible in court, there are best practices that must be followed for digital forensics evidence identification, collection, preservation, processing as well as for presenting that evidence to the powers that be. It should be left to the experts.”
He notes: “Sourceworx provides comprehensive digital forensics, eDiscovery and expert witness support to corporations and government. Leveraging our extensive experience, advanced technology and industry best practices, we deliver reliable and defensible results.”
Continuous expertise improvement
Sourceworx certified security engineers have digital forensics certifications and extensive expertise, and undergo continuous learning to stay abreast of changing techniques and new security protocols in use in new devices.
“We focus on continuous improvement to support the expert security advisory services on various domains of cyber security, including strategy development, risk management, compliance and incident response,” Karinda says.
“Our team of well-versed professionals works closely with organisations in various business sectors to understand unique needs and provide tailored solutions that enhance security posture and protect critical assets. Our advisory services do not only safeguard data and applications but also ensure continuity of business operations should any type of disaster surface. Subscribing to our expertise and holistic approach to cyber security relieves your organisations from the need to invest in additional staff or infrastructure,” he says.
Karinda adds that as organisations move to cloud computing for the business advantages of cost savings, flexibility and scalability, they expose themselves to new security challenges that need to be addressed to secure proprietary or strategic data and applications. Given its prevalence as a target, e-mail security is a critical element of an organisation's overall cyber security posture. Sourceworx offers comprehensive cloud security solutions, which includes data encryption, threat protection (spam, phishing, malware), access control, data loss prevention and security monitoring.
To ensure data integrity, confidentiality and availability in network and cloud environments, robust network security solutions are essential. Sourceworx's service delivers a comprehensive suite of solutions, including firewall management, intrusion detection and prevention, VPN services and continuous network monitoring to defend against cyber threats like unauthorised access, data breaches, malware and denial-of-service attacks.
Sourceworx has also invested in a security operations centre (SOC) for around-the-clock monitoring in case of any security breaches.
Karinda says: “Our cyber security analysts leverage AI-powered tools that aggregate threat intelligence from diverse sources, enabling them to identify emerging attack methods. These tools monitor an organisation's computing environment for old and new attack methods and blocks or remediates as the need arises. Incident notifications are transmitted to security operations centre analysts, who perform immediate incident verification and provide necessary assistance. Outsourcing this service to a dedicated team of experts helps organisations save time and effort in training personnel to manage threats and frees up internal resources to focus on core business activities.”
Sourceworx also offers cyber security risk assessments to evaluate an organisation's fundamental security posture, providing strengths/weaknesses analysis and actionable recommendations for security improvement.
He says: “We also offer a more complex assessment where we test the protection, detection and response capabilities of the organisation's computing environment. Our experienced personnel are qualified to perform comprehensive audits against various regulatory requirements, including the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) Joint Standard on Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Requirements, and ISO/IEC 27001:2022.
“Our comprehensive security services protect organisations' infrastructure, physical and cloud from diverse threats, ensuring data integrity, confidentiality and availability. Leveraging our expertise and advanced network security tools, we reduce the need for additional staff and infrastructure investments. Our proactive cyber security approach minimises data breach risks, safeguards reputation and builds resilience, enabling confident operations,” Karinda concludes.
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