SOUTH AFRICA – SLVA Cybersecurity has announced a new partnership with BullWall, a Danish technology innovator, to empower South African businesses with a laser-focused last line of defence ransomware solution.

Estimates suggest a ransomware attack occurs every 11 seconds globally and causes an average of 23 days of downtime. In South Africa, the average cost of remediation from a ransomware attack was R6.4 million with 50 to 70 percent of all attacks aimed at SMEs.

The multi-layered containment solution, RansomCare (RC), detects and reacts to malicious file corruption and encryption and stops it in its tracks. The solution is agentless and utilises more than 20 detection sensors to detect the tell-tale signs of active ransomware.

Patrick Evans, CEO SLVA, said that ransomware is constantly evolving, becoming more powerful, aggressive, and financially devastating.

“We are very excited about our partnership with BullWall as it will enable clients to become more resilient and ensure business continuity in the face of a ransomware attack. It’s a partnership that has real relevance for South Africa as one of the top five most targeted nations for ransomware in the world,” he said.

“Despite deploying endpoint protection, too many organisations fall victim to ransomware. This is because attacks target file shares, which is why a last line of defense solution designed to stop malicious encryption on monitored file shares and file servers is so vital.”

He added that the financial implications of a ransomware attack are staggering.

“The risks are significant and impact businesses who can least afford it. SME businesses are frequent targets and the vast majority of those, at around 60 percent, do not survive the next six months,” he said.

“A ransomware attack can easily encrypt up to 10,000 files per minute. A proven, 24/7 automated response like BullWall complements existing security defenses and instantaneously detects data anomalies and events.”

SonicWall Capture Labs recorded logged nearly 500 million attempted ransomware attacks from January to September last year amounts to a 148 percent surge as compared to the same period last year.

RedPanda Software partners IntelliQ

In an effort to address retail fraud in South Africa, worsened by increasing digitisation and cybercrime, retail software specialist RedPanda Software has partnered with UK-based forensic analysis solutions provider IntelliQ to bring fraud analytics to more retailers.

According to the companies, retail shrinkage, or loss of inventory, can be attributed to many factors such as employee theft, shoplifting, administrative error, vendor fraud, cybercrime, damage and cashier error. The end result means a loss of profits for retail businesses.

redPanda Software understands that retail shrinkage is a persistent problem with real implications for the bottom line.

In 2021 TransUnion research found that a year into the pandemic, 37% of South African consumers had been targeted by digital fraud. It also found that 17.5% of all global e-commerce transactions and 7,8% of South African transactions between Black Friday last year and the next Tuesday were potentially fraudulent.

redPanda Software and IntelliQ believe online crime syndicates are well-aware that as retailers increasingly digitise their businesses and move to omnichannel strategies to improve their engagement with customers, there is an exponentially increased attack surface, such as the “buy online, pick up in store” functionality, among much more.

This danger extends to threats inside a business, such as rogue employees or systems that need addressing, they add.

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