Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 07 | Page 10

NEWS Accenture opens Liquid Studio to help drive innovation for SA clients an effort to drive innovation locally. Rory Moore, Innovation lead for Accenture in South Africa said: “The next wave of South African growth and competitiveness will come from continuous innovation, and I am proud that we are working closely with our clients to fuel innovation and solve critical business problems at speed and scale.” The Liquid Studio accelerates innovation by applying rapid development approaches including Agile methodologies and DevOps. This allows clients to reduce development time from months to days and shorten the time to business impact. Clients can also experiment with disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and cloud architectures. The capabilities of the Liquid Studio will be supplemented by Accenture’s alliance ecosystem, startups and others. Accenture has launched a new Liquid Studio in Johannesburg as part of the company’s accelerated investment in innovation in South Africa. At the Liquid Studio, clients will work alongside Accenture professionals to quickly turn ideas into innovative applications and solutions. The Liquid Studio is the first of several new Accenture initiatives in South Africa which include expanded investments in training, hiring and strategic relationships in “Through immersive workshops, organisations will receive tangible, hands-on experience of how their business can benefit from the most disruptive technologies,” said Willie Schoeman, Managing Director for Accenture Technology South Africa. “By leveraging agile teams, a startup culture and multi-speed, microservice and cloud-based architectures, organisations will see more value quickly and lead in the new digital world.” Internet Solutions launches cybersecurity education service, PhishNet Internet Solutions has launched PhishNet to support corporate cybersecurity education efforts. PhishNet allows security teams to launch authentic phishing campaigns to their colleagues, bolstering training by demonstrating what a phishing lure looks like – and how easy it is to fall for one. Sean Nourse, Chief Solutions Officer at Internet Solutions says: “Phishing attacks are increasingly sophisticated and they target individuals, so proactive employee education is an important element of a holistic cybersecurity strategy.” Internet Solutions recently tested the efficacy of phishing by sending a PhishNet campaign to a list of IT-savvy contacts. Despite deliberate spelling errors, an outdated logo and a questionable subject line, a staggering 40% of recipients clicked the phishing link contained in the email. Our dependence on mobile devices aids phishers as small screens make it difficult to examine emails and websites carefully, and we’re more likely to unthinkingly click links while on the go. companies identify which employees require additional training and contributes to security efforts by making employees aware of new cyberthreats. PhishNet provides security teams with detailed reports on who clicked the links contained in the mock-emails, who submitted credentials when prompted and even who is running vulnerable or outdated Internet browsers. This helps Nourse is quick to point out that employee education should be regular and supportive, rather than punitive: “A service like PhishNet contributes to an ongoing education effort that recognises how vulnerable all computer users are.” 10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com