In recent years on Africa Internet Group there was a shift in the way we build technology solutions, Security came first. Our customers are our most valuable asset so we employ the best practices to protect their data.

This is no easy task by any means, with Security first sometimes we have to compromise a little bit on other areas like UX and performance but we always do our best to keep the impact to a minimum. The path is hard and the Security team is (normally) always seen as an obstacle, always pointing problems, difficulting our work, etc.. This isn’t true, we never intend to hinder our colleagues work . We are here to guide the teams to follow best practices in order to reduce vulnerabilities to a minimum, avoid data breaches and aid our colleagues during the design and implementation of the project. Everyone inside a company is a member of the Security team, because we are only as secure as our weakest link as we can see everyday in the media: big companies with great focus in security being hacked, with the entry point to the internal network being an employee’s machine where the user clicked in the wrong link.

Raise awareness for security concerns within our organization is an important milestone in our roadmap, from training sessions, workshops, emails with warnings, tips and tricks where we show everyone that we are in it together, that we all need to have the mindset of security first so things can be properly designed and run smoothly. Treat your colleagues with respect, speak with them without being arrogant and they will start to respect your Security Team and it’s members.

Don’t act like a rock star, be a member of the community!

Regarding our work in Africa Internet Group, the boat is big. We are in 26 countries each with local offices and warehouses plus our multiple online platforms, so we need a way to organize things and make them visible for us, the CTOs and the Stakeholders. To accomplish this we are developing support tools to help us, but more of that in a future post.

This is just an introductory post, expect more in the future.

Stay safe!