En Garde! Ready Yourself

“We are in a new era,” opened George Gakungu, Liquid Telecom’s pre-sales engineer. The computing and IT ecosystem is evolving. Services are steadily shifting toward cloud as the traditional IT sector slowly shrinks. This comes loaded with numerous opportunities that point toward company progress but such is also the case for the other side of the spectrum, the threat filled terrain. Envision the dark and gloomy elephant graveyard from Lion King, where the hyenas slink and creep, wait and bait, ready to wreak havoc on the digital Pride Land of the technological landscape. There should be no bargain for protection when it is a necessity.

“There needs to be a new way thinking around how we dispense our services and how we protect this important data that we have,” he urges. The more you move toward transformation, the more exposed your digital footprint becomes, leading to a much bigger exposure surface for your services. For a CIO, this is certainly a concern that can keep you tossing and turning all night, and through a business-centric sense, there is an urgent requirement to increase cloud infrastructure and coverage but most pressingly, to secure it. More cyber exposure increases the risk of more cyber-attacks. Without protection, there leaves much room for vulnerability and your firm remains prone to phishing or social engineering attacks, insider threats, ransomware, shadow IT, password compromise, just to name a few, even though just one of these…  is already one too many.

“This is where Liquid Telecom comes in, there is an increased requirement to deliver security services to our clients, developing what we call a secure business through a cyber-security solution,” Mr. Gakungu stated. Liquid Telecom having been an internet, network and cloud service provider for many years is adamant in securing the internal infrastructure, with an increased need to deliver security services to clients. “We secure people and access to the system as well as securing the systems through which this is done,” providing a thorough assessment of the hierarchy of protection and security needs within a company.

Through securing the people, your staff becomes a human firewall. Riveting, isn’t it? This is done through simulation, training on the best practices and awareness, assessment of cyber knowledge, uploading of content awareness through real time interventions and reporting of risks and compliance.

Delivery of secure access allows return of visibility to IT and secures staff access. With digital transformation, there has been a shift in how security processes have been operating. Previously, securing the perimeter is viable but it seems too overbearing seeing as it is no longer able to hold more than 10-20% of the surface needed for protection in regard to cyber security exposure. “The threats are with us in every interaction we have with technology,” Mr. Gakungu warned. At this point, securing your systems is a story that writes itself.

All this is to be achieved through a three-tier titan trifecta, well trained, adjusted and ready for battle. Through the transformation of network and cloud, cyber-security should be the base to build a foundation on. Liquid Telecom offers secure access through Zero-Trust network access, a secure web gateway and Cloud access security broker.  Secondly, ensures secure cloud through identity and access management, advanced threat and information protection and backup and disaster recovery. The last slice of the three-piece pie is the provision of cloud networking, through ability to connect to, in and within the cloud, and a secure access service edge.

So why have a secure business with Liquid Telecom? All systems and tools are flexible, highly skilled and technical team, security across Africa, a local flavor with a global experience and building of strategic partnerships. No one escapes the threat landscape but several can transcend their limitations in response to it. Protection shouldn’t be a gamble and if you’re on guard, you’re always one step ahead.