A webinar to be hosted by KnowBe4 in partnership with ITWeb this week will reveal the findings of the first KnowBe4 – ITWeb Ransomware Survey, which has found South Africa is in the firing line of cyber attackers.
KnowBe4 SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist Africa Anna Collard says the survey found that a surprisingly high number of South African organisations said they would likely pay a ransom if attacked. “The hit rate is basically higher than you’d achieve in a legitimate direct marketing campaign,” she says.
“At the same time, the country is not adequately prepared to mitigate the risk, and a growing number of industry sectors are highly cyber dependent. This makes South Africa very attractive to cyber criminals, particularly as more developed countries clamp down on ransomware syndicates. We are in the firing line,” she says.
Collard says the top three priorities of many local privacy and information security professionals in South Africa today are ‘ransomware, ransomware and ransomware’. “Our research confirms that ransomware is a top concern across industries. Nearly a third have already fallen victim to ransomware attacks, some of them multiple times, and many have suffered extensive losses as a result.
“Interestingly, the survey found that data and revenue losses were not always ranked as the most damaging impacts of an attack,” Collard notes.
Collard and Charl van der Walt, Head of Security Research, Orange Cyberdefense will reveal the full findings of the new report during the State of Ransomware in SA webinar on 14 October. They will outline what the survey found on the number of local organisations that have fallen victim to ransomware, what the most damaging impacts were, whether they paid or would pay ransom, what attacks cost them, and how well prepared they are for ransomware attacks. They will also analyse the readiness of local organisations to mitigate the risks and outline global best practice in defence and remediation.
For more information and to register for this event, go to: https://www.itweb.co.za/webinar/knowbe4-state-of-ransomware-in-sa/
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