In a hyper-connected, always-on world, both citizens and businesses must develop robust, multi-layered cybersecurity strategies to combat the flourishing cybercrime ecosystem. These illicit markets have become more accessible, necessitating security strategies and tactics that reflect the increased prevalence of attacks.

Thabiet Gabier, Head SHEQ Department at NEC XON

I am delighted to share the news that our Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) department has received the ISO 45001 certification. This is a significant advanced safety culture milestone for NECXON, making us one of only two NEC affiliates in EMEA, alongside NEC UK, to achieve this rigorous standard.

Michael de Neuilly Rice, Cyber Security Architect at NEC XON

In an era where workplace boundaries are increasingly fluid, traditional enterprise network security is inadequate. The rise of cloud adoption, coupled with the ubiquitous nature of remote work, demands a security solution that is as dynamic and agile as the modern workforce itself. Enter Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), the beacon guiding enterprises toward a future-proof network infrastructure.

Yosuke Koide, General Manager: Global Synergy Creation

​Like many countries on the African continent, South Africa has a young, growing population. However, its roughly 60-million population face a challenge that may be surprising to people from other countries: daily power outages that may last as long as 12 hours. It’s a challenge that Yosuke Koide is working to address through cutting-edge technology developed by NEC.​

Michael de Neuilly Rice, NEC XON Cyber Security Architect

NEC XON often finds itself at the nexus of innovation, exploring new technologies to enhance defence mechanisms against evolving threats. Recently, while implementing a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution for a client, our team had a moment of reflection: could a mature Extended Detection and Response (XDR) system have provided even greater benefits?

Unmasking AiTM: The Resurgence of Adversary-in-the-Middle Attacks in Cybersecurity
In the dynamic realm of cybersecurity, threats often disappear temporarily, only to evolve and reappear in more sophisticated forms. One such resurgence is the Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) attack, a potent phishing tactic that poses a significant risk to the security of SaaS applications. How should organisations prepare themselves to counter this formidable threat?

​5G OpenRAN (ORAN) technology that enables mobile operators to open the RAN network and use multi-vendor solutions holds huge promise for business growth in Africa. It means network operators can focus capital expenditure (capex) on competitively priced open-standards equipment rather than proprietary gear.

“It enables attractive savings of about 40% on capital expenditure and 30% on operating expenditure (OPEX),” says Willem Wentzel, head of Wireless at NEC XON. “It can also be deployed in a matter of two to three days instead of up to nine months. But the realities of Africa mean that 5G ORAN will initially be limited to private corporate networks in industries like mining, manufacturing and industrial where large campuses are common. Public ORAN networks are likely to remain on 4G for the moment, given the level of investment in existing infrastructure and the prohibitive cost of 5G handsets (UE) for consumers.”

Meeting Africa’s Internet (and business) growth needs
​​Teraco, Africa’s leading carrier-neutral colocation provider, originally broke the high-cost Internet peering spell in South Africa with NAPAfrica. Where customers collectively used to fork out millions of Rands every year to connect across major carriers, Teraco allowed them to peer for free simply by locating in their datacentres – which offered free peering by default. However, notwithstanding NAPAfrica’s low-cost peering, Teraco and its customers remained locked into high-cost proprietary hardware and software providers.

5G’s high capacity make it technically viable for the peak demands of demanding business applications
5G for cellular networks has seen a lot of interest in Africa, particularly now as the Open RAN model gains traction. Uptake of private 5G, however, has been relatively limited to fewer, more highly scaled and complex business cases. Now that’s changing because of some simple yet interesting developments. One of the major changes that has now occurred to improve 5G as a feasible solution to enterprise requirements is the sharply reduced cost, thereby creating compelling use cases.

​5G is causing a step change in Africa’s mobile networks. Operators are grappling with how to respond. Get in early? There may be expensive lessons you’ll teach your competitors at no cost to them. On the flipside, you may miss the market opportunity.  But service providers have a lot more options today to roll out 5G. Exploring these can shed light on when the best time may be.

The Open RAN (ORAN) initiative has gained serious ground in the past year. It has gained support from a slew of international vendors, including NEC. It’s also benefited from the ground-breaking Rakuten deployment.

African networks and CSPs want to expand coverage and grow the subscriber base
Mobile networks and communication service providers (CSP) in Africa need a cost-effective way to add hundreds of millions more subscribers to their networks. They do not need to add complex new services that demand the nth degree in low latency, high network throughput, and blazing speeds to support use cases that, while they may capture imaginations, offer limited commercial feasibility in Africa. This is why Open RAN adoption is accelerating. It enables cost-effective ways to integrate legacy equipment, integrate existing equipment, and share infrastructure in architectures that enable scalability, development, and innovation.

Critical Thinker equips people with the practical skills they need
“As part of the global NEC team, we talk about orchestrating a brighter future, but what does that mean? How does that impact our people and our customers? And what are we doing at ground level to bring it to life, not just for the challenges we all face today, but in how we deal with the challenges we face going forward? That’s why we developed Critical Thinker.”

Priya Naidoo is GM of HR at NEC XON Systems. She has perhaps one of the toughest jobs for an ICT systems integrator with a growing team of innovative solution providers expanding across Africa today: building and sustaining a growing talent pool from increasingly scarce resources.