The reality faced by CIOs today is that IT security threats are becoming more frequent and far more difficult to detect. Technology has evolved to help companies across global markets develop effective security strategies, but the advent of digital resources within the enterprise and the introduction of more applications and devices by employees in the workplace has resulted in an escalation of the risk factor for business infrastructure.

This is one of the messages communicated to delegates attending the 10th annual ITWeb Security Summit hosted in Midrand, Johannesburg.

Introducing the Summit, Charl van der Walt, co-founder and managing director of SensePost, likened the general information security space to a hunt between predator and prey, and said that in this scenario the market "has lost" and is 'about to get eaten'.

In terms of data breaches, volume, scale and results, 2015 has been worse than the previous two years combined van der Walt explained.

"2015 has been our worst year ever," he said, "There is plenty of data to support this... if this year is the year of the mega-breach, then 2016 is expected to be the year of the super mega-breach."

In his presentation van der Walt said when it comes to IT security, there was a need for a new analogy and said the notion of running faster than the competition to avoid being taken down no longer works.

Adding to communication around risk to business, Vuyani Jarana, CIO of Vodacom Business, said in a message written for the Summit, "Amongst the challenges faced by CIOs, it's not just the issues of deploying IT security solutions, it is also about ensuring the corporate information is protected against device losses, applications that are not approved by the organisation that could syphon information into deferent unauthorised storage destinations, or just basic recording and capture of crucial R&D projects through use of camera functions of most smartphones."

The agenda for the two-day event will feature a presentation by cyber security and digital forensics investigation expert Yusuph Kileo Pan-African security initiatives – how to interface with initiatives on the continent, with a specific focus on Tanzania, as well as a discussion on fighting cyber crime in Africa – the Nigerian perspective led by Abdulkarim Chukkol, head of the Advance Free Fraud and Cyber Crime Section for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria.