SA cyber security company receives trust accolade from US partner   

A South African company specialising in cyber security has received The Acronis #CyberFit Loyalty Award in the United States, given to Acronis’ partners for working and continuously growing with Acronis for over five years.

Acronis is a global data protection software company with headquarters in Switzerland and Singapore. The company helps other businesses to protect their data, applications, systems and productivity in more than 150 countries, safeguarding them against cyberattacks, hardware failures, natural disasters and human errors.

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IronTree is a South African company, founded in 2007, and a provider of business continuity services that include secure online backup, ransomware protection and disaster recovery as a service.

Steve Porter, Managing Director of IronTree, explained that from 16 000 partners around the world, the company outranked them all to win the award.

“It is so important to us that a South African company has been acknowledged again. We’re a proudly African organisation,” he said.

SA still plagues by cyber threats

According to a 2021 Interpol report, South Africa had 230 million cyber threat detections between January 2020 and February 2021. Additionally, the country recorded a 100% increase in mobile banking application fraud and is estimated to have suffered 577 malware attacks an hour in 2020. As a result, the country is considered to have the third-highest number of cybercrime victims worldwide.

The South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s (SABRIC) Annual Crime Statistics revealed an increase in calls from fraudsters impersonating bank officials, in an infamous type of fraud referred to as vishing (or voice phishing).

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Hamil Bhoora, PwC Africa’s Cybersecurity Competency Leader, says: “Cybersecurity has become a highly sophisticated and dynamic field which requires businesses to rapidly adjust and improve their cybersecurity defences in order to detect and prevent cyber-criminals from compromising their organisations. This is clearly indicated in the survey results of our Digital Trust Insights survey where we see opportunities for business executives and cybersecurity professionals to stress that more work is required to protect their organisation from cybercrime”.

* Compiled by Devina Haripersad