American cybersecurity company, Palo Alto, was on Thursday at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit to pitch the importance of securing South Africa’s networks that are vulnerable to hackers.
The regional lead of Palo Alto in South Africa, Justin Lee said the company aims to connect the country to the rest of the world. With talks of collaboration with the government and local businesses, the organisation also claims to be eager to create jobs.
This, despite reports in Israel, where dozens of employees at the affiliated company CyberArk were fired after Palo Alto acquired it for $25 billion.
Will South Africans be next?
Helmut Reisinger, CEO of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) marketing division, has said that South Africa is “very young”, compared to Europe and can therefore benefit from the opportunity of investment.
When asked about the layoffs in Israel, Reisinger said it was just a “dozen” layoffs, implying that it’s simply business.
“So first of all, we’re talking about dozens and not hundreds or whatever…
“And it’s very natural that when a company, which we were before, of 16 000 people, is acquiring a company of 4 000 people that in certain departments there will be overlap.
“It’s our approach to be transparent to our teams as well.
“Not to say, let’s celebrate, we are all together now, and after three weeks there comes the bad news that a small group is impacted by it,” said Reisinger.
This response may not be appreciated in South Africa, where the reality of unemployment is stark.
The company punted its cybersecurity services to the public and private sector, without disclosing how accessible they are for those who fall victim to the major AI skills gap.
Youth unemployment is already a huge issue in South Africa, along with the AI skills gap in communities. This investment in South Africa can lead to growth, but it will depend on the capacity and whether geopolitical agendas will interfere with the business’s claimed goals.
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Palo Alto in SA
Justin Lee, Palo Alto’s regional director in South Africa, said the company is already working with the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) and some of the universities to train students.
“We do have our academy and we have engaged.”
It was emphasised that these were strictly “consultations” and that nothing has been finalised yet. The South African government has made no mention of partnerships with Palo Alto in the cybersecurity space yet.
“We’ve engaged at a national government level… more of a consultative approach to government.”
There is an affiliation with Wits University, where 41 000 students have access to AI-based security operations. He also mentioned an acceleration of e-government (electronic government) services, not just in South Africa.
Data breach reports
Palo Alto offers cybersecurity solutions and reports on data breaches in the network system. According to Lee, the company has “big initiatives” in Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana as “there is really big interest taking place across all governments across Africa”.
Reports from Reuters confirm that the Kenyan government has engaged in initiatives with the organisation to secure data against regional attacks that were suspected to be from China. Palo Alto, however, would not confirm that the hacking campaign came from China, in fear of retaliation from Beijing.
Haider Pasha, Palo Alto’s vice president, emphasised that the company does not attribute attacks to specific regions but notifies customers that, “these are typically the types of work of a certain group”.
He said the company has “indicators of compromised tactics, techniques and procedures at that group”.
He emphasised that their focus is not to attribute attacks to specific regions once a breach in the security data system has been reported, but to “figure out what exactly they are doing and how to stop it”.
“We keep track of all the major attack groups that are out there, and so when a cyberattack usually happens against a certain environment, we’re going to run that pattern of behaviour in the TTP (tactics, Techniques and procedures) to actually validate” the typical area or group hackers are coming from.
Potential political inteference
When asked about the political tension between the United States and South Africa, Lee said he was not concerned.
He said the company works across the world and will ensure that each country’s source code is protected.
“For example, we’ve listed on the Israeli stock exchange and we intend to diversify it, but very importantly, we don’t ever give away our source code to anybody,” Lee said.
“Now geopolitically, if Trump sanctions us, there’s nothing I can do, because essentially we are American-owned,” he said while shrugging.
Lee thinks that geopolitical tussles are not of concern at this stage, even after suggesting that it could be a problem where South Africa may need to “take away our reliance on certain elements”.
“I don’t think we need to worry about it, in my honest opinion.”
Despite the event exploring the possibilities of AI and network security in South Africa, the goals seem to be driven towards profiting off the country’s vulnerabilities and possibly creating more dependency on American cybersecurity services.
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