Following the recent cyber-attacks, the most devastating one being WannaCry ransomware, smart businesses have opted to secure their assets by working with data experts. Let’s face it, cyber-attacks are here to stay, the question is how prepared is your business in the inevitable event that you get attacked?
That’s where Continuity East Africa comes in, they are data recovery and business continuity experts that make sure, just as their name suggests, that your business continues to operate even when disaster strikes. I had the pleasure to interview them and find out how exactly they ensure business continuity.
Continuity East Africa is a South African company that is owned by Internet Solution Kenya -it is good to note that Internet Solutions also owns Access Kenya- the company is based at USIU and serves the whole of East Africa on three main tasks, Data Recovery solutions, Advisory and Business Continuation.
To explain data recovery, let’s take a look at the WannaCry attack. The ransomware would cripple a computer by encrypting all its files then hold then ransom. The user would be forced to pay $300 within a given period of time in order to get the decryption key. At this point, the user had two options, either pay the $300 and hope that the attackers would be true to their word and release a decryption key, which is not a solid solution at all. Second option is that the business would simply restore all their data saved in a remote location and continue with business as usual. Continuity East Africa makes the second solution possible, they have data recovery services that safely store your company’s files in a remote location, in case your systems are compromised, you can tap into the remotely stored data and continue with your business operations. Continuity East Africa already has Kshs. 200 million data recovery centre built in Kenya.
The company also offers advisory services to businesses. You simply walk into their offices and tell them what business you are in; from there they will advise you on ways to best secure its continuity. They will dissect various aspects of your business and determine what is recoverable in the occurrence of a disaster; this is called a business continuity plan. Each business is different and unique in its own way, for instance, some business have in-house servers with technical teams to operate them, others outsource these technical aspects and simply focus on their core business. Continuity East Africa understands these differences exists and they tackle them by tailor-making a continuity plan based on the unique attributes of your business, not a one-fits-all kind of solution.
Lastly, they offer Business Continuity, this is a culmination of the other two discussed above. There are different services offered to make sure you are protected and will not need to do data recovery in the first place. These activities include cooperate email services, anti-phishing solutions, website reputation systems and many more.
Not much can be done after an cyber-attack is successfully executed and the victim did not have prior protection measures in place, the best time to get prepared is now, get ahead of the disaster by having a safety net set up. The next cyber-attack is only a click away, Continuity East Africa is the safety net your business needs right now.