By Kate Mollett, Commvault Regional Director for Africa

As cyber threats become more sophisticated and dangerous, businesses in South Africa need to prioritise their defence strategies to protect their valuable data. Ransomware attacks have increased by 80% year on year, and attackers are using more complex approaches. According to ThreatLabz State of Encrypted Attacks 2022 Report, malicious scripts, and payloads made up almost 90% of encrypted attack tactics that were blocked in 2022. Cyber Deception technology is enabling organisations to proactively protect themselves from cyberattacks, thwarting attackers efforts and stopping them in their tracks.

To set the scene, many IT teams in South Africa are not equipped to detect ransomware attacks early enough to prevent successful breaches. They lack tools to cover their sprawling data estate and are not detecting zero-day threats early enough. Zero-day threats are vulnerabilities that cybercriminals exploit strategically to sell or use for malicious purposes.

To counter these threats, many businesses are turning to cyber deception technology. Deception technology can help businesses detect zero-day threats by using intelligent decoys to trick hackers into targeting and interacting with fake resources. This gives businesses time to take remediation efforts.

Deception technology populates the network with decoys that mimic resources like workstations, databases, network assets, and IoT devices. ‘Bad actors’ or cybercriminals that exploit vulnerabilities in your network, are immediately engaged and diverted toward convincing but fake assets and drawn away from valuable data and assets. Threat alerts are dispatched to key stakeholders and security systems before any systems or data can be compromised.

To minimise risk in the current cyber landscape, South African businesses need to focus on building more effective solutions that address the specific risks posed by cybercrime tactics. They need to act before data is compromised and have the power to immediately identify and divert malicious threats before data is stolen, damaged, or compromised. By adopting a multi-layered cybersecurity approach, which includes deception technology, South African businesses can frustrate bad actors before they even have the chance to make a ransom demand.