Why African organizations need to get serious about cybersecurity

Over the years we have seen Africa's economy thriving. This noticeable increase has been linked to success and adoption of technology in the continent. However, with this advancement comes various cyber security threats such as (Malware, Phishing, Hacking Cybercrimes etc).

Cyber-security has been a growing concern in the world economy and now a major concern for African organizations. One major FACT every organization must understand is that as technology evolves, so will cyber threats. Below is a list of why organizations need to adopt cyber security in everyday business operations.

1. BRAND PROTECTION: An example of this is organizations adoption of Social media (twitter, Facebook etc), Mobile applications, Emails, and Websites to reach out to customers.

Even as most organizations are forced to adopt these new technologies, it has also brought great concerns to business owners as customers trust in various brands has diminished as a result of falling victim of one form of cyber threat or another. Cyber threats that fall in this category vary from cyber-criminals building fake branded mobiles apps, fake website, fake email and fake social media accounts all to deceive customer and do away with either confidential information or money.

African organizations need to take cyber-security more serious to protect their BRANDs from such impersonation attacks which eventually builds customer trust and grows business in general.

2. DDoS Attack: DDoS attacks have wrecked so many organization over the years as a result of Service denial. You can imagine being in a bank and unable to carryout urgent transactions as a result of bad network. This single incident alone can lead to the loss of thousands of customer who feel such brand is not reliable.

Cyber criminals carry out denial of service in various ways to extort money from organizations and also tarnish brand image. DDoS attacks can either target critical application in your environment, firewalls, internet link or even as a Ransomware which encrypts all users files and eventual denies organization from offering services to clients 

3. Regulatory Compliance: We have various regulatory compliance many organizations need to comply with. Theses compliance varies from industry and example is PCI compliance for financial Institutions, HIPAA compliance for Health care etc.

Failure to comply with these compliance regulations can cost company billions of dollars and eventually lead to extinction of such organization.

Conclusion: As far as organizations adopt one form of technology for its daily operations, such organization must also take cyber-security very seriously as this is very critical to business growth and business continuity.