To date, seven cyber security projects have emanated from a collaboration initiative between several ICT players and two local tertiary institutions, which aim to integrate industry trends and academic research - specifically in the areas of innovation, hi-tech trends and extreme network security.
The South African Laboratory for Network Security Products and Services (SALNSPS) was established at the beginning of last year by T-Systems SA, IBM, and Cisco, as well as the universities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Klaus-Dieter Wolfenstetter, innovation development specialist at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, visited SA to attend the recent feedback session on projects driven by the lab. T-Systems SA is a local subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.
"Victims of cyber crime are no longer only private users, but increasingly enterprises and organisations," Wolfenstetter said, adding that the SALNSPS initiative was a way of combining different skills from different disciplines to counteract security threats.
Providing feedback on the projects driven by the University of Johannesburg, Professor Basie von Solms, head of the Department of the Academy for IT, said it is noteworthy that security is becoming an increasing concern for CEOs.
The SALNSPS initiative aims to address this concern, and enable the sharing of research and development information between academia and industry, he stated.
National asset
Von Solms said he would like to see the SALNSPS become a national asset in the IT space in the near future. Post-graduate students are running seven security-related prototype projects under his leadership, and it is hoped that some of these will eventually be adopted by industry.
The focus of the initiative is to perform theoretical research and development, practical testing and prototyping, and practical development to the level of proof of concept of security products and services, Von Solms said.
The projects driven by the SALNSPS fall into four main categories: secure authentication, infrastructure security, security architecture, and security governance.
T-Systems business manager Dr Andrew Hutchison said one of the main goals of the lab is to improve the research skills of post-graduate students and prepare them for involvement in the local industry.
The lab, he stated, is "starting to prove that the concept is having the desired effect of bringing together different players in the security landscape and acting as an incubator to encourage skills development within the security landscape".
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