The launch of the unit follows research by the telecoms giant last month that concluded that cyber security threats were on a rise during the COVID-19 period where companies had to adapt to changing circumstances, with workers now operating from home.
The new working model created new vulnerabilities to cyber attacks and hence the need to rethink how cyber security has been approached in order to give maximum protection to customers at every intersection of their digitally-transformed business.
Liquid said the return of employees created a need for companies to embrace a hybrid model of digital and on-site working.
"Liquid Telecom has streamlined and strengthened its cyber security offerings into one unit to address these growing concerns," David Behr, Liquid's group chief digital officer said during a webinar conference yesterday.
"With decades of knowledge in this field and an eye on the future, the offering is designed to address the key concerns of information technology (IT) decision makers, by securing businesses effectively to increase productivity."
Liquid is a leading communications solutions provider across 13 countries, primarily in eastern and southern Africa and serves mobile operators, carriers, enterprises, media and content companies and retail customers with high-speed, reliable connectivity, hosting and co-location and digital services.
"Although we are unveiling the cyber security unit today, Liquid Telecom is not new to this space," Behr said.
"We have successfully secured our own network for the past 15 years, and now, through our strategic partnerships with Netskope, Logicalis, Microsoft and Cyber Risk Aware, we have curated the best solutions in the industry to address the changing demands of a digitally transformed business world, allowing customers to focus on their core business while we manage their complete IT environment," he said.
He said while many African companies already had some level of protection, the safeguards may not be designed to protect an organisation at every level of its operations.
Behr said the releasing of its end-to-end solution was not only well timed, but also covers all aspects of security working together seamlessly and reducing the opportunity for breaches and risks.
He said cyber innovation would be embedded in business strategies. Cyber security is evolving, with small companies taking an enterprise approach, while big corporates take a risk-centric view.
Concern over cloud security is growing, he said, adding that there was a need to create human firewalls in order to protect companies from security breaches.
Liquid chief executive Nic Rudnick said it took over 220 hours to detect a cyber breach, which could result in the loss of millions of dollars.
Logicalis chief information security officer Caesar Tonkin said there was increased use of artificial intelligence by security vendors and corporations in predicting cyber-attacks.
