Welcome to the third piece on the South African insider threat landscape which follows on the piece about Employees Mishandling Sensitive Data. In this edition I want to touch on encryption as it appears in South African businesses. Our team have analysed over 47 Million Window, File, Application and File Transfer activities, quickly and accurately, using Dtex SystemSkan Intelligence Framework analytics toolset. We use only real findings to tell you what is really happening within South African businesses.

The modern business should understand that your information is the most valuable asset to people with ill intent, this is far more valuable than the actual laptop or computer it is stored on. We all know and hear about theft from businesses or political offices where the thieves steal only hard drives and laptops. These types of thefts are not after the hardware.

One of the simplest ways to protect these items is with encryption – so we had a look at how much encryption was used around the base. The results were not encouraging; especially when you remember that 1 in 40 staff misuse company data as discussed in my previous post.

This is the second piece in the series around the actual Insider Risk in South African businesses, which follows on from my previous piece on 10 Years in South Africa. I will be going over our real findings on what is really happening within South African businesses. We have analysed actual usage to share information on real risks to educate and provide meaningful advice to identify and then act against these threats.

J2 Software was born 10 years ago to service African markets with leading Information Security & Governance solutions and related services. We aligned ourselves and started the business with Dtex Systems – a young and dynamic company – and the powerful insider risk detection solution SystemSkan.

We saw the requirement for real visibility of user activity to prevent risk and reduce losses long before it was “cool”. The last decade has given us amazing insight into what really takes place out there across corporate networks of all sizes. We have gained insider views on what the everyday man and woman will do for their own benefit and in the weeks to come we will bring this information to you.

The last few weeks have been a busy time, no scrap that, the last few months... I have been involved in so many discussions around information security, breaches, policy, ransomware, growing risks, behavioural analytics and similar lines of conversation. I have spoken to so many very clever business and IT leaders; and I am often baffled how one of the most obvious facets in governance and protection is overlooked. They simply miss the (end) point.