Press Release
Serianu Partners With the Global Cyber Alliance to Reduce Cost of Cybersecurity
Nairobi (Kenya), January 21, 2021–Africa’s leading cybersecurity consulting firm, Serianu, has announced a new partnership with the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) to provide local private and public sector organisations with access to better cyber risk management tools.
GCA is a global nonprofit organisation, co-founded in 2015 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, City of London Police, and the Center for Internet Security. GCA has united a global community of more than 200 organisations, as well as launched a range of initiatives to tackle cybercrime worldwide.
In a statement, Serianu’s Head of Product Strategy and Development, Ms. Brencil Kaimba, explained that the partnership will enable institutions to reduce the impact of cybersecurity attacks by leveraging the combined research and tools that will enable proactive defense of intrusions into systems.
She noted that, over the last five years, the scale and depth of cybersecurity attacks on firms and government departments across the African continent had multiplied nearly ten times as cybercriminals became more sophisticated and more localised.
Serianu cybersecurity research shows that between 2015 and 2020 the cost of cybercrime in Africa rose from an estimated half a billion dollars to three billion, as attackers expanded their scope from the financial sector to manufacturing, government, and individual mobile devices.
But for most organisations, implementing cutting-edge cybersecurity management tools remains out of reach, with more than 70 per cent of them spending less than 10,000 USD annually on cyber risk. It is, therefore, imperative that affordable, effective solutions are made available.
Ms. Kaimba explained that the partnership with the Global Cyber Alliance will provide more affordable tools to help cut losses caused by cybercriminals as the two organisations use the benefit of insights generated from Serianu research and its local market knowledge to deploy the most suitable modern cybersecurity management tools.
Brencil Kaimba, Head of Product Strategy and Development of Serianu, said:
‘We have noted that more of the criminal breaches are being executed by local IP addresses, meaning that, increasingly, our attackers are from within the African continent, and therefore we need better tools to monitor and stop them in their tracks.
We believe that this partnership will have a real, positive impact on SMEs across Africa, and we estimate that GCA tools will reduce the cost of implementing cybersecurity solutions for African organisations by at least 50 per cent.’
Terry Wilson, Global Partnership Officer at the Global Cyber Alliance, said:
‘It is a privilege for GCA to collaborate with Brencil and her team at Serianu. Our key joint mission is to enhance cybersecurity hygiene and mitigate known cyber threats within SMEs in Africa. We will explore opportunities to combine our efforts to raise awareness among SMEs especially on topics related to email security and DNS security. Serianu’s comprehensive threat landscape reports provide insights from African SMEs and will inform the development and adaptation of GCA’s tools and practices to fit the needs of SMEs in Africa.’
