Leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom and Serianu, a pan-African cybersecurity specialist firm, have announced a new partnership to improve cybersecurity standards and practices across Africa.
The partnership brings together Liquid Telecom’s award-winning fibre network, data centres and cloud-based offerings with Serianu’s dynamic, business-focused security monitoring and analytics solutions to offer end-to-end protection for businesses of all sizes.
In addition to providing organisations with all their connectivity and hosting needs, Liquid Telecom will now be able to offer cybersecurity assessment, monitoring, training and incident response through a combination of Serianu’s consulting, managed services and threat intelligence.
“While digital transformation presents vast opportunity for businesses today in Africa, the risk of cybercrime has never been greater. Through this partnership with Serianu, Liquid Telecom is not only ensuring that customers using our network and data center facilities have access to the very latest cybersecurity solutions, but that we are also raising the overall level of cybersecurity standards and practices across the region,” said Ben Roberts, Group Chief Technology and Information Officer at Liquid Telecom
Through the partnership, advanced monitoring and incident response services will be made available for customers using Liquid Telecom’s network and data centre facilities, leveraging Serianu’s state-of-the-art Security Operations Centre (SOC) in Nairobi.
“Supporting local businesses and initiatives is one of the key pillars that both Serianu and Liquid Telecom share in common. Through this partnership, we will explore new ways to empower existing and future customers with quality, home-grown cybersecurity solutions that will help reduce the risk and cost from cybercrime across the region,” said Serianu CEO William Makatiani.
Customers will also have access to Serianu’s new state-of-the-art Africa Cyber Immersion Center in Nairobi. The research, innovation and training facility provides an experimental environment for businesses to test their cybersecurity capabilities, and will help address the cybersecurity skills shortage facing the region by providing additional training for IT professionals across the public and private sectors.
According to the latest Africa Cyber Security Report by Serianu, the estimated cost of cyber-crime across Africa reached $3.5 billion in 2017. Surveying organisations from across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, Namibia, Lesotho and Botswana, the report reveals that over 90% of African businesses are significantly exposed to cybersecurity risks.
According to Serianu, this is mainly due to their low investment in critical cybersecurity tools and services. “These organisations are all operating below the cybersecurity poverty line; a point at which an organisation cannot sufficiently protect itself from fraudsters,” said Makatiani.
The agreement with Serianu forms part of Liquid Telecom’s Innovation Partnerships strategy, and will enable the Kenya-based cybersecurity company to scale at speed across Liquid Telecom’s network footprint, which connects 13 countries in Eastern, central and Southern Africa.
The partnership will serve customers across a wide range of industry verticals, including banking and finance, insurance, governments, healthcare, manufacturing and hospitality. It will particularly benefit SMEs, which are among the most vulnerable to the risk of cybercrime.
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