Consider the disruption that Stage 4 Load Shedding caused across South Africa earlier this year. That period of rolling blackouts reportedly stemmed from the impact of natural disaster Hurricane Idai on the country’s energy supply, but imagine for a second that someone had hacked the Eskom power grid, plunging the country into darkness and causing massive damage to the economy through lost working hours and shattered investor confidence. If that hacker was employed by another government, would that attack be considered an act of war against South Africa? How would you tell the difference between a planned military operation and conventional cybercrime? How do you stop it?

This talk will explore the invisible but mounting threat of cyberwarfare to nation states, especially as critical infrastructure is increasingly “brought online” – that is, digitised and networked. We will look at critical cybersecurity solutions and defence mechanisms for governments and businesses alike, focusing on threat hunting as a primary action and key part of a soldier’s arsenal. This proactive, iterative approach to system protection puts attackers on the back foot and is ideally suited for today’s complex, ever-evolving threat landscape.