Cyber-attacks are rising daily. As cyber-crime poses a very real threat, any business owner that does not value security is potentially putting that business at risk, according to Paratus Zambia.

The ICT and telecommunications services provider references a recent article published by cyber-observer.com which states that 92% of malware is usually delivered by email, and hackers attack every 39 seconds and, on average, 2 244 times a day.

They also projected that the cost of global cyber-crime related damage is anticipated to be R87-trillion this year alone, equivalent to over 127-trillion Kwacha.

In its statement to the media, Paratus Zambia added that according to the Overseas Security Advisory Council’s Zambia 2020 Crime and Safety Report, “Cybercrime is an increasing problem in Zambia and poses a danger of grave financial loss.”

The statement reads: “...Taylor & Francis says: “Cybersecurity is considered a luxury, not a necessity in many African economies. Its importance has not yet been sufficiently appreciated or acknowledged on the continent, and budgets for cyber-security in many organisations are reported to be less than 1%. Even financial institutions, which face the biggest cyber-threats, lack proper cyber-security practices, while law enforcement officials in some African countries do not take major actions against hackers.”

Now that more and more people are working remotely, businesses are even more vulnerable because this is where many of the recent cyber-attacks have occurred.

Paratus Zambia offers SSL VPN (Virtual Private Network), which gives secure remote access via a client application or web portal to data located on the server of the respective company.

Paratus Zambia adds: “The primary benefit of this network-level access via an SSL-secured tunnel between the client and the corporate network is data security via encryption and privacy. The Fortinet VPN technology provides secure communications across the internet between multiple networks and endpoints, and by leveraging FortiASIC hardware acceleration, this provides high-performance communications and data encryption. For any business in the financial, mining, construction, or agriculture sectors, this is a fully integrated solution.”

Paratus Zambia also uses Fortigate to filter all network traffic at a hyper-scale pace to protect the organisation against external threats.

The Firewall service is managed end-to-end on Paratus Zambia’s core network and not on the customer’s premises.

The company asserts that some advantages are 24/7 monitoring, secure entry points into- and out of the network and guaranteed uptime.

Paratus Zambia said it also handles configuration, maintenance and licensing requirements, to obviate the risk of misconfiguration.

The company believes having a single secure service provider that offers 24/7 personal service offers up several benefits, in addition to being highly cost-effective.

“Using multiple service providers means multiple bills, administration overhead and when technical issues arise, it can take extraordinary long to deal with them, which compromises the security. With a single provider, all issues can be managed promptly, securely and easily,” it stated.

Paratus Zambia MD, Marius van Vuuren, said: “We are thinking big in terms of integrating and protecting network services. We offer the most secure internet packages because we are continually upgrading our hardware and software using the latest technologies. These are designed to protect businesses and individuals from the most advanced cybercrime threats and all while delivering them as high-quality network service.”