Boland Lithebe is the Accenture Security Lead for Africa.

He has extensive experience within the African security industry and is passionate about helping Accenture’s clients reduce their risk. Lithebe believes this is incredibly important in the face of the ever-increasing cybersecurity threats that organizations must manage.

In this What’s Next interview, Lithebe discusses how businesses have had to adjust to the new ways of working while continuing to protect their important business data and resources. He contextualizes this by unpacking research which shows that cyber threats are one of the largest risks to global stability. Lithebe then outlines the big trends that he has seen in the cybersecurity industry, and how these risks can be minimized.

He also explains that organizations should always presume that they’re facing major cyber security threats, and should therefore have a Security Operations Centre (SOC). He discusses how South Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of its maturity when handling cybersecurity threats, but also notes that local businesses are acting to change this.

He concludes by discussing the importance of POPIA and projecting the future landscape of cyberthreats.