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Bryan Hamman , Arbor Network ’ s territory manager for Sub-Saharan Africa

Bryan Hamman , Arbor Network ’ s territory manager for Sub- Saharan Africa , discusses where South Africa stands in terms of government awareness of DDoS threats , and activities that should be taken to protect business and enterprises from DDoS attacks .

The report , which represents a request for comment from the industry , highlights the efforts needed to reduce the threats from automated distributed attacks . The American Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security are pursuing three approaches , namely , hosting a workshop , publishing a request for comment ( the report mentioned above ) and initiating an inquiry through the President ’ s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee ( NSTAC ). This is aimed at collecting input from experts and stakeholders , private industry , academia and civil society .

IT consultant and author Gary Audin said the report postulates that there are five concurrent and continuous functions that need to be applied , as follows :

• Identify and locate devices that cannot be secured

• Protect the system and network architectures to provide additional layers of protection for any remaining high-risk devices and deploy DDoS mitigation services

• Detect using a combination of ISP-based detection services and enterprise-operated network monitoring for both inbound and outbound malicious traffic and identify infected devices in near real time

• Enterprises should have processes and procedures to contact their ISPs and anti-DDoS service providers when attacks are detected

• Recover the enterprise ’ s ability to reestablish infected systems instead of paying ransomware to resume operations

Against this background , Arbor Networks said it would be useful to ask where South Africa stands in terms of government awareness of DDoS threats , and activities that should be taken to protect business and enterprises from DDoS attacks .

Bryan Hamman , Arbor Network ’ s territory manager for Sub-Saharan Africa , said : “ Increasingly we are seeing that botnets – Internet connected devices which have been infected with malware – are becoming a global problem . Botnets allow the attacker to access the device and its connection and can be used to perform DDoS attacks , steal data and send spam . The owner can control the botnet using command and control ( C & C ) software . It is arguably an imperative , then , that this initiative by a US government department to investigate DDoS attacks be put into place .

“ Because South Africa is not immune from DDoS attacks , I would advise the necessity of investigating the issue of such attacks at government level in our country also .”

Hamman believes it is therefore heartening that ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned the pending establishment of a commission around the digital industrial revolution in his 2018 maiden State of the Nation Address ( SONA ).

Picking up on this theme during the Gauteng State of the Province Address ( SOPA ) in Johannesburg , a short while after Ramaphosa ’ s 2018 SONA , Gauteng Premier David Makhura also emphasised the impact that the fourth industrial revolution is having on the country ’ s economy in general , as well as on jobs .

Hamman said : “ We are still in the extremely early days of South Africa under the leadership of our new President , but it is heartening that , at both a national level and at the level of the Gauteng province – which is arguably the economic powerhouse of the country – we are seeing a political awareness and understanding of the importance of the digital world filtering through . At Arbor Networks , we look forward to further information on the role that the government intends to play in empowering South Africa ’ s future in the digital revolution and are always prepared to offer input and support against cyberattacks as part of that digital preparedness .” •

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