Page 14 - Logistics News - September October 2022

C YB E R SE CUR I T Y

Where does SA logistics

stand when it comes

to cybersecurity?

Local market leaders, including Bidvest International Logistics (BIL), provide a fascinating
perspective on where this vital part of the nation’s economy rests and what needs to be done
to address increasing threats.

outh Africa’s logistics industry is battling a especially damaging, impacting ports, harbours and
war on many fronts. Bad weather, equipment pipelines to the point that the state enterprise was
Sbreakdowns and shortages and congestion forced to declare force majeure at several container
continue to hamper the country’s ports and add days to terminals.
the supply chain, creating havoc downstream.
Lesiba Sebola, Director of Information Technology
The conflict in Ukraine and the weakness of the at Bidvest International Logistics (BIL), says it’s
rand are exacerbating the situation, with inflation paramount to safeguard IT infrastructure given how
L O GI S T I CS NEWS addition, South Africa is now firmly in the crosshairs of the financial losses incurred. Transnet not being able
central it’s become to operations. “The bottom line is
skyrocketing to the detriment of consumers. In
cybercriminals. Antivirus provider Kaspersky’s research
to operate its ports affects us and, obviously, if there
are attacks in our own environment, that necessitates
shows that ransomware attacks in South Africa doubled
downtime of the infrastructure and it is difficult to
between January and April 2022 compared to the same
conduct business,” he says.
period last year. The 2021 cyberattack on Transnet was

12 SEP T E MB E R/O CT O B E R 2022 www .l o g ist i csn e w s .c o .z a