Cyber Security Africa is a relatively new kid on the distribution block, focusing on the burgeoning security market.
Kathy Gibson spent some time with CEO Robert Brown to find out more about where the organisation comes from, and where it’s heading.
Very few distributors have opened up in the last few years – in fact, there’s been more consolidation in the sector than growth – but a group of friends and colleagues believed there was a gap in the security space, and last year formed Cyber Security Africa to fill it.
The founders are al IT industry veterans so they went into the venture with their eyes wide open.
CEO Robert Brown has been in the IT security space for the last 26 years, having started out distributing Dr Solomons in Zimbabwe in 1994 before moving back to SA to start DRS in 1997.
Martin Britz hails from Tarsus, where he ran the African distribution. He looks after Africa at CSA.
Toni Bowker who originally headed up sales at Primedia, later moved to DRS and now runs CSA’s Cape Town office.
Mike Brown working in marketing at Nashua and was the CEO Broadlink, so he offers a different outlook on the business.
Simon Campbell-Young is no stranger to distribution, with his roots in Memtek, Phoenix and others.
“So we are quite a diverse bunch,” says Robert Brown. “And this speaks to the type of business we do at CSA, which spans the entire market from retail-based consumer all the way to the enterprise, from a single-user anti-virus to threat intelligence and Priveledge access management.”
The industry has seen a lot of false starts in the security distribution market, but Brown believes the time is right now.
“Security is growing exponentially, faster than anything else in the market.”
Part of the reason is that there is a massive skills shortage in the security space, so CSA, as a value-added distributor, has been welcomed by the market.
“The network we have between us, in terms of people we know, the relationships and trust we have earned in the industry, speaks volumes as well,” says Brown.
“Knowledge is important, of course. But we also come with a good attitude, with an amazing ability to want to do business.”
The team’s expertise in both Africa and South Africa stands it in good stead when it comes to doing business in the region.
He believes that one of the factors making CSA different is the fact that all the owners are personally involved in the day-to-day business of the organisation.
“We have a wealth of experience, and we enjoy trust and respect from our vendors. We would never get them on board if they didn’t believe we were able to take their product to market.”
Because security is such a strategically vital area, it’s important that the distributor has a clean reputation, is able to perform, and can support the technology.
CSA already has seven technical staff members on board, and has plans for more. “I know how important it is to have good tech support,” Brown says.
As a small niche distributor – currently one of the smallest in the local market – Brown says the owners are ploughing everything back into growing the company.
Part of this commitment is demand creation, which is then passed on to the resellers.
“We work with partners, to help create the market,” Brown says. “We will help them to do proof of concept projects, and to close deals. We are also available to help partners with the actual installation and deployment, and of course we provide training.”
CSA distributes BitDefender, Group IB, Anomaly, Silverfort, Rapid-7 and A10 networks in South Africa and Africa. It also represents McAfee, CyberArk, CyberReason and KnowB4 in Africa.
The SA security scenario
As 2020 gets underway, Brown believes that organisations are still facing massive threats from ransomware, which is still growing.
In addition, phishing in all its guises is also active, with cybercrooks doing literally everything they can to get people to click on to compromised links.
Large DDoS attacks, like the ones the hit South Africa’s Internet Service Providers in the second half of 2019 are also still very much a possibility.
“The people doing cyber-crime have massive resources,” Brown points out. “On the other hand, each organisation has a limited budget, so it’s often an unfair contest.”
One way to level the odds, he says, is to foster more collaboration through the creation and sharing of threat intelligence. “Security can’t be a marketing exercise of a competitive advantage for companies; we need to collaborate more so everyone is more protected.”
This ties into the need for additional integration between the systems and products in use in each organisation, he adds.
Cloud computing adds new end-points, and therefore creates a greater threat area, while 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) add new devices that need to be protected.
However, the biggest threat around cyber-security is a lack of education. “At the moment, the users are not well educated about security,” Brown says. “And because there are such skills shortages, many partners are not as up to speed as they could be either.”
New solutions for evolving threats
Cyber Security Africa (CSA) has signed value-added distribution rights to A10 Networks for South Africa and Africa.
A10 Networks was founded in San Jose, California in the US, explains CSA CEO Robert Brown. It provides security, analytics and management with intelligent automation.
It offers on-premises, virtual and cloud-native security solutions that automatically defend applications and services, in real time, before they are exploited by advanced cyberattacks.
As 5G and (Internet of Things) IoT take off, there’s a need for A10’s agile consolidated solutions, which result in improved security efficacy, higher reliability and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Customers can use the Thunder Application Delivery Controller (ADC) solution to build agile hybrid-cloud deployments with secure application services across public, private and hybrid clouds and in Kubernetes containers, while gaining the analytics, automation and agility needed to protect your business. Meanwhile, modern apps are housed in public, private, and hybrid cloud, forcing application traffic management to evolve.
The A10 solutions complement the purely security offerings that CSA already distributes.
“When you talk about threat intelligence, you need to start getting big data – and the further up the pipe you can go, the quicker you can respond.”
Typically, the A10 Thunder Threat Protection System (TPS) solution would be employed by enterprises, in their data centres, or by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offering a scrubbing service, Brown adds.
The Thunder TPS solution is available as either a physical or virtual appliance – “It’s very scalable,” says Brown – and as a perpetual license or software as a service.
It’s designed for large organisations: the smallest offering is for a 1Gbps line and it scales up from there.
“So it’s a proper enterprise product, and would also be attractive for ISPs.”