Companies

S. Africa firm eyes Kenya cyber security contracts

del

Participants at the launch of the Kenya Cyber Security Report 2015 at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi last year. It revealed that private companies and public organisations are exposed to cybercrime. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU

A South Africa IT infrastructure firm, Dimension Data, is targeting local companies such as banks and others that handle high-risk data to provide remote security solutions.

The company last week launched its Managed Security Services (MSS), whose selling point is that it eliminates the need by its clients to invest heavily in internal security experts and help organisations to establish regulatory compliances.

The managing director of Dimension Data East Africa, Joseph Kairigo, said clients will be charged depending on the number of machines or servers that are to be remotely monitored and the sensitivity of the data.

The firm previously concentrated on IT system integration, however its entry into the managed security services will now see it compete with the likes of East Africa Data handlers, Safaricom, Ericsson and Intel.

Dimension Data, however, said it would be relying on its professional security service team across the Middle East and Africa to deliver the service from its Security Operation Centers (SOCs) to keep off competition. 

“Our MSS offerings represents a new milestone in our security capabilities and will strengthen Dimension Data’s position as a leading managed security service provider in Middle East and Africa,” said Sean Duffy, the Security Executive at Dimension Data Middle East and Africa.

The new solution is able to capture real-time logs and send alerts of manipulation of electronic files and any attempts to circumvent IT controls, the firm said.

“These service offloads the burden of real-time network monitoring, advanced security analysis, and global intelligence correlation to Dimension Data while allowing businesses to keep complete insight into critical business information.”

The entry of Dimension Data into the security space comes against the backdrop of a Kenya Cyber Security Report 2015 that revealed that the vast majority of private companies and public organisations remain exposed to cybercrime and internal IT fraud and that three quarters of the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses scanned during the study were found to be vulnerable to remote attacks.

READ: Cybercrime costs Kenya govt Sh5bn a year: report

The study found that on average most medium sized organisations with over 70 employees in Kenya have at least two vulnerable computer servers and up to 15 infected computers that were already hacked into by cyber criminals.

The study put the annual cost of cybercrime to Kenyan companies at Sh15 billion ($146 million).

A breakdown of the figures shows that the public sector is the worst hit losing approximately Sh5 billion per year followed by the financial services sector at Sh4 billion and manufacturing and industrial sectors at Sh3 billion in the third place.

The telecommunications, media and technology and other sectors are estimated to lose between Sh1 billion and Sh2 billion respectively.