Managing cyber attacks to reduce consumer vulnerability

The recent global cyber-attacks have been making businesses and consumers uneasy as tech is so all pervasive in our lives. Then with Transnet’s ransomware attack earlier in the year, followed by one on the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development - the reality of online crime really hit close to home.

There’s no doubt that as we advance so rapidly in terms of online technology that we’re vulnerable to different kinds of cyber threats. But one of the ironic things about living in a digital world where crime is so high is that fact that we’re quite savvy in terms of our personal online safety.

This is also because many businesses actively communicate with consumers about being super-safe when it comes to transacting online. At Vodacom we remind customers to only use secure wi-fi and to never click on suspicious links or open unusual attachments. And often we are schooled by technology itself, which suggests secure passwords and warns us about suspicious emails, plus we have online chatbots which monitor financial transactions and flag any unusual activity.

So, while we're not downplaying the seriousness of the recent ransomware threats, in some ways we can be reassured that the public in South Africa are aware that they need to be hyper cyber-vigilant. Also, it is heartening to know that there’s a massive amount of ongoing research and investment being channeled into keeping our online business systems safe and secure.

To give some perspective on how pervasive the level of cyber-attacks has been, Trend Micro reports that each of the four big global cloud service providers – which are Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure - have only had two security breaches in their services over the past five years… combined.

The reason for these cloud service providers being so secure is that, like us at Vodacom Financial Services, they prioritize security above all else. Not only their reputation but their entire business rests on being uber-impenetrable.?As Bob Violino, who writes for InfoWorld says, “One well-publicized security breach that ends up being blamed on their services could scare off untold numbers of prospective customers, cost millions of dollars in losses, and possibly lead to regulatory compliance penalties.”

Shared responsibility model

Because of the critical level of security needed at these cloud service providers, security in the cloud is done through something called the Shared Responsibility Model. This model is simple but it has been refined to dictate exactly who is responsible for any operational task in the cloud and security is simply a subset of those tasks. At this level of operations, businesses then verify their trust in their cloud service provider through various ways, depending on their level of usage.

Vice President of Cloud Research, Mark Nunnikhoven, explains, “When built well and deployed intelligently, security controls (help teams deliver solutions that are more dependable, easier to observe, and more reliable. Security helps you build better.” Within this there’s also the ability to monitor resources, components and adherence to policies, cloud service providers can shut off any part of a system if something is affecting the service.

Five ways VodaPay protects you from online criminals

To help allay any fears people may have about transacting online, especially with Black Friday and the December spending frenzy in our sights, we'd like our consumers to know that we are all in this together and will protect their safety and security online using all the tools at our disposal, of which we have many.

1. VodaPay will never ask you to share your banking details via SMS or email.
2. VodaPay uses world class technology to protect all your personal details and transactions.
3. VodaPay uses facial recognition technology to ensure that only you have access to your app.
4. Never share your VodaPay password with anyone as you could expose yourself to cybercrime.
5. VodaPay will never ask you to share your personal details on email. Never open emails from an untrusted source as scammers use them as bate to steal your details.

The new VodaPay super app was built in partnership with the incredible technology and experience of world’s largest mobile payments platform with over 1.2 billion unique users and over 80-million merchants – Alipay. This tech giant and their systems are so trusted they saw over $17 trillion of transactions done last year alone.?So, there is no doubt that super app customers can rest assured that the safety and security of VodaPay’s technology is proven, tested and the best available in the world.?