T-Systems’ new Cyber Defence Centre brings agile, leading-edge security to SA enterprise

By Lukas van der Merwe, Specialist Sales Executive: Security, T-Systems South Africa

Johannesburg, 12 May 2020
Lukas van der Merwe
Lukas van der Merwe

T-Systems South Africa has relaunched its Security Operations Centre (SOC) as a Cyber Defence Centre (CDC), offering its advanced cyber defence portfolio, which leverages the latest leading-edge cognitive technology, to customers as a managed service.

Lukas van der Merwe, Specialist Sales Executive: Security at T-Systems South Africa, says the company's CDC’s security offering leverages artificial intelligence (AI), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) technologies and advanced threat hunting capabilities, which place significant emphasis on the detect and response elements of cyber security.

He points out that this is the first commercial CDC in South Africa to offer these services to customers. While there is a significant appetite among local enterprises to adopt these leading-edge security solutions, uptake has been virtually non-existent due to the prohibitive costs and lack of skills to configure, maintain and operate this technology.

“We are now able to offer this level of protection in a shared services model, as part of our managed cyber defence portfolio, to customers – especially small and medium enterprises – that would otherwise not be able to afford to deploy this technology.”

Given the frequency and sophistication of cyber attacks in the current landscape, a security breach is inevitable, says Van der Merwe, adding that organisations must face the reality that it is not a matter of if, but when they will be attacked.

“When it happens, how fast you are able to detect and respond to the breach is the differentiator. Our investment in state-of-the-art technology has taken us to the next level to be able to respond much faster, with more confidence, and thus to limit the cost of a security event to a significant degree.”

Van der Merwe notes the CDC is the culmination of 10 years of diligent investment in security operations, drawing on the best that T-Systems International has to offer globally.

“Our CDC is part of an integrated network of 17 similar facilities around the world, and we are now able to offer our South African customers security solutions with AI and SOAR components, combined with proactive and anticipatory cyber security practices.”

The CDC has been operational since January and will officially be launched to the market soon.

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About T-Systems South Africa: TSSA company profile

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