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Developing countries vulnerable to cyber attack

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 17 May 2016
SA may be less vulnerable to cyber attack than other developing countries, says Sensepost's Charl van der Walt.
SA may be less vulnerable to cyber attack than other developing countries, says Sensepost's Charl van der Walt.

Developing countries tend to be particularly vulnerable to cyber attack, said Charl Van der Walt, founder member and MD of Sensepost, at ITWeb Security Summit 2016 in Midrand today.

This is commonly due to low levels of computer literacy and ineffective legislation, Van der Walt explained.

Despite widespread perceptions that SA lags significantly behind other countries in terms of cyber security, Sensepost research indicates South African customers are about 8% slower to patch vulnerabilities than overseas customers, he noted, calling this a relatively small variation.

Van der Walt also cited a Sensepost survey in which the majority of respondents, if given the option to hack a South African company or an overseas organisation, did not believe the nationality of the company significantly impacted its vulnerability.

While corporate SA's security is of an internationally comparable standard, state ICT security is less well-established, he said, noting, however, that general distrust in the government could inflate perceptions of this failing.

"As an information security community, we need our government to step up. We need leaders who think intelligently about information security," who will help set strong precedents, and citizens need to be informed enough to elect these people, concluded Van der Walt.

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