The many ways in which it is now rife in South Africa.



In August 2020, South Africa experienced its largest-ever data leak, which exposed the personal information of around 24 million South Africans and just under 800,000 businesses. The suspected fraudster deceived credit bureau Experian under the guise of being an existing client.



Despite Experian claiming that “no sensitive consumer credit or financial information was obtained by the fraudster in this incident”, the Information Regulator (South Africa) confirmed that the data made its way onto the dark web via a whistleblower.



“The whistleblower has informed the regulator that the information of natural persons that is hosted on the dark web includes their cell numbers, home and work phone numbers, employment details and identity numbers,” it said via a statement.&nbsp;



“The personal information of companies includes the names of the companies, contact details, VAT numbers and banking details.”



Experian is pursuing criminal and civil charges against the fraudster.



Mimecast says cybercriminals are targeting South African public and private sector organizations in orchestrated attacks that could lead to devastating losses in business productivity, reputational damage and revenue.



Brian Pinnock, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast, says the global pandemic only served to accelerate the volume of attacks. It reportedly found a 75% increase in impersonation fraud in South Africa over the first 100 days of the pandemic.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“As South African organizations implement systems and policies to ensure compliance to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), which comes into force in July 2021, we are likely to hear about more data breaches.” – Brian Pinnock, a cybersecurity expert at Mimecast</blockquote>



“As South African organizations implement systems and policies to ensure compliance to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI), which comes into force in July 2021, we are likely to hear about more data breaches. This is in part because of the legislative requirement to inform customers and regulators of any breach as soon as reasonably possible. The regulator appears to have since indicated that 72 hours is a reasonable period,” says Pinnock.



According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), cybercrime remains one of the greatest threats to global prosperity and is expected to cost the global economy $2.9 million every minute in 2020.



The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a complete digital shift for both business and personal interaction from video calls to collaborative tools and down-time activities such as shopping, streaming or gaming.&nbsp;



Cybercriminals have proven highly adept at exploiting a crisis or global event, and a digital ecosystem where the risk of getting caught remains very low and the potential returns are very high, says the WEF.



Additionally, the profits from these malicious activities allow for continuous improvement in capabilities that often surpass the intensive cybersecurity investments made by government or corporate victims.



Since lockdown began in South Africa, impersonation attacks have escalated as workers are forced into remote work, says Pinnock.



“Home information technology is generally insecure, and most organizations have not planned to securely support remote users at this kind of scale.”



He says criminals will look at trends and popular services, brands or topics and exploit these because they know there’s a greater chance of individuals clicking on links and falling into traps.&nbsp;



John Mc Loughlin, CEO of J2 Software, an African security-focused company based in Johannesburg says cyber security and privacy risks should be top priority for any business at present, especially whilst trying to accommodate all staff in their remote working environments.



“More concerning is the intensification of cyberattacks; unscrupulous cybercriminals are exploiting vulnerable and unsuspecting home workers,” says Mc Loughlin.



The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) says it has already seen an increase in new scams involving personal protective equipment, fake vaccines as well as other phishing scams.&nbsp;



SABRIC CEO Nischal Mewalall says: “Amendments to grant distribution processes, the increased use of deviations in procurement processes and the availability of relief funding to businesses and employers will make South Africa even more vulnerable to corruption, armed robberies, application and procurement fraud in 2020 and beyond.”



SABRIC has warned that cybercriminals are exploiting the spread of the coronavirus by using “coronamania” panic to spread scams through phishing and SMS phishing.&nbsp;



Mc Loughlin says that cybercriminals are using SMS phishing, more commonly known as ‘SMishing’, to trick victims into clicking on a link disguised as information on a coronavirus breakout in their area to steal credentials. “Some of these texts claim to provide free masks or pretend to be companies that have experienced delays in deliveries due to the coronavirus.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">According to the World Economic Forum, cybercrime remains one of the greatest threats to global prosperity and is expected to cost the global economy $2.9 million every minute in 2020.</blockquote>



He adds that cybercriminals will also create fake news, links and stories to incite rage and spread these via platforms such as WhatsApp. “As unsuspecting people share fake news and malicious websites, these criminals expand their reach, which stems back to common attack methods that use our built-in fear and uncertainty to trick us to click.”



While investigations are pending from South Africa’s largest data leak, Experian won’t be held liable as the POPI Act allows companies to comply with its new rules by 1 July 2021. Depending on how serious a breach is, the new Act makes provision for fines of up to R10-million ($597,000) and a jail sentence of up to 10 years.



By Nafisa Akabor

Hacker in front of computer

Cybersecurity: Covid-19 Or Not, Cybercrime Is Here To Stay

When Peter Bauer was nine years old his mother asked him a question that would change his life. That question was “Do you want to get a bicycle or do you want to get a computer?” He chose the computer and today he is the co-founder of Mimecast, an email management company worth $300 million with offices in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the States.
Garth Wittles runs the South African operation. Two months ago the company secured $62 million worth of funding which brings the tally to $95 million since they launched in 2003.
Bauer and Wittles, 11 years apart, met in Cape Town as techies. Their paths crossed throughout their careers and eventually they went into business.
“Peter stood out as a unique individual very quickly in many facets,” says Wittles.
Bauer had started working in the tech industry straight after high school.
“I knew, I guess, from about age 14 that I wanted to go into business.”
He got his first job at 19 running a procurement company out of his business partner’s garage. By 23, he had decided to team up with some friends, Simon Andrew and Craig Fullerton, to run a tech company in Cape Town.
Soon afterwards, a buyer from Johannesburg approached and almost charmed his way into a bargain buy. He wined and dined Bauer and Andrew in Camps Bay, but luckily Fullerton hadn’t made it to the dinner.
The following morning, a hungover Bauer and Andrew were ready to accept an offer of R30,000 ($3,390) for the company, but fortuitously a sober Fullerton said no.
“… It sounded impressive you know, three ways that’s 10 grand each,” laughs Bauer.
“Craig said, ‘No, hang on a second… The only number we will accept to do this deal is R40,000 ($4,520)…’ [The buyer] said, ‘I’m afraid not…’ 11 months later we sold the company to Idion for R20 million ($2,3 million). Ja, we felt rather stupid,” he laughs.
After making millions, Bauer tried his luck and moved to the UK with his family.
Here, he met Mimecast co-founder Neil Murray, a fellow South African techie in London. They saw a change in computing and didn’t want to be left behind.
“We noticed that inside corporate email systems is the holy grail of corporate information and hugely valuable stuff and I always thought, ‘If you take an email system and you steal it from a company and print everything out and you sift through these piles of paper and you read everything, you’d pretty much know about everything to do with that company, what it does and how it operates’. So, we were really interested in this change in computing model, addressing the complexity around corporate email and figuring out how to turn corporate email into a corporate asset,” says Bauer.
Mimecast manages corporate information by storing it in an internet-based cloud. It sorts through emails to eliminate viruses and spam before they reach the recipient.
It has won a number of industry accolades but has also suffered headaches.
“It took quite a few years to build this platform. I remember promising Neil, and some of the other techies we recruited that in about 12 months’ time we would be making good money. I probably believed it, but it took many years. Both Neil’s and my wife had married these young South African millionaires and we’d moved to the UK… And over the years downgraded literally to the point where we lived like refugees… It took some conviction but we believed very strongly in what we were doing, we just understood that it would really take time and persistence,” says Bauer.
In South Africa, Wittles saw the vision that Bauer and Murray had for Mimecast and he wanted in.
“I remember him talking to me on the phone and [he] said, ‘I like what you’re doing. Can I set this up in SA?’ And I said, ‘No’, and eventually in 2004 Garth said, ‘Look, I’ll do this thing. Give me the technology support and I’ll crack the SA market.’” says Bauer.
Wittles had the go-ahead, now was his chance to turn the vision into a business.
“In 2003 and 2002 the concept of cloud computing was only emerging internationally, so the business [here] was very very early into that space,”
says Wittles.
While Bauer and Murray were establishing Mimecast in the UK, a first world country, Wittles was facing tougher times.
“Bandwidth was one of the biggest challenges for establishing Mimecast as a business in SA. In 2003 there wasn’t much of it, and what there was extremely expensive and that in some way was a little bit of an inhibitor for organizations locally,” says Wittles.
Money would be the biggest inhibitor of all.
“Essentially what you’ve got is a piece of paper that outlines a plan or a vision. You don’t have any track record, you don’t have any customers, you don’t have any revenue. Raising money in South Africa was really difficult… The only way that you can really raise funds, I suppose, is to finance it through debt… Run it out of your garage and really put your house on the line. So, it created an environment in the early days… that failure cannot be an option because if you do fail, your life is down the tubes,” says Wittles.
Today, Wittles is the senior vice president of Mimecast. Some of his customers include Anglo American, Pick ’n Pay, Dimension Data, MTN, Aspen and the University of Cape Town.
Bauer is the CEO and is heading the US operation, while Murray, the chief technology officer (CTO) is running things in the UK. The close-knit company has 330 employees worldwide and around 10 of them are Bauer’s high school mates.
In 2010, they recruited American email pioneer Dr. Nathaniel Borenstein as their chief scientist.
Borenstein was the first man to send an email attachment, he is also known for co-founding MIME—the protocol formatting multimedia internet electronic mail 20 years ago.
Their next plan is to expand into what they call the information bank industry, putting value to information like banks do to money. Once again their heads are in the clouds, only time will tell if they are ahead of the pack once again or will end up living like refugees.

Tag: Mimecast

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Cybersecurity: Covid-19 Or Not, Cybercrime Is Here To Stay

Wishing On A Cloud