The World Health Organisation and governments around the world are grappling with the Coronavirus (now named Covid-19) that has, as of end-February, infected more than 110 000 people in over 100 countries. Predictions are that it could cause in excess of $1 trillion of economic damage.

In 2017 the NotPetya virus became a global cyber-pandemic that spread around the world in a few short hours, paralysing organisations, crippling shipping ports and shutting down government agencies globally. It caused over $10Bn in damages.

One reason for the seismic disruptions caused by both medical and cyber pathogens is the interconnectedness of the global economy. Supply chains now span multiple continents. Air travel passenger volumes have doubled. Disruption in China is leading to disruption everywhere.

Similarly, digital supply chains span continents and cloud computing has become ubiquitous, leading to a digital interconnected web which is fragile and can be easily broken.

The coronavirus has brought into stark relief some elements of basic human nature that come into play in both a health crisis and a cybersecurity incident.

A deeper look shows striking similarities between the human responses to the coronavirus outbreak and cybersecurity incidents.

Risky behaviour exposes everyone

Reports suggest that the coronavirus originated from animals such as bats, pangolins or civets. Cross species transfer possibly occurred in a market in Wuhan. Researchers found that the tolerated risky behaviour of consuming exotic animal parts triggered a single introduction into humans, which was followed by human-to-human spread. Similarly, employees engaging in tolerated risky behaviour, such as visiting adult or dark web sites or downloading files from non-work-related portals, can let malware into the organisation that spreads from one user to another.

Transparency is critical

Too often, keeping silent exacerbates the situation and puts business communities at risk. China has received some backlash, with reports emerging that the Chinese government at first played down the risk of outbreak and later the extent of the problem. Transparency is a major contributor to effectively managing the potential fallout from a viral disease. Even today, we are unsure of the extent of the coronavirus outbreak.

Similarly, by the time senior management are made aware of a serious cyber incident, the infection has usually been incubating and spreading in an organisation for weeks or sometimes months. The organisation can become the source of further infection via their own email systems. Coverups mostly don’t work and hide the extent of the problem to the wider community which leads to misinformed complacency about risks.

Many organisations don’t share threat intelligence effectively or at all. Cybercriminals therefore employ the same attack method repeatedly against multiple organisations because it keeps working. We enable criminals by staying silent and ineffectually sharing the symptoms and preventative measures of the cyber disease.

The importance of basic (security) hygiene

Demand for face masks is surging. But face masks aren’t as effective as most people think. Unfortunately, people are drawn to visible controls rather than invisible ones. But medical authorities suggest that basic practices, like regular handwashing, are more effective at preventing the spread of the virus.

The equivalent in cybersecurity is focusing on basic controls first. Have effective and regular patch management practices, implement controls to detect and prevent the spread of malware, adopt regular employee awareness training to equip people with the appropriate knowledge to avoid risky behaviour. It is mostly invisible, but it is a critical layer in the defence against cybercrime.

Herd Immunity and Misinformed Complacency

Organisations who can’t or won’t patch and protect their systems or train their people are the equivalent of the those who won’t or can’t vaccinate their families. An expectation of herd immunity is often misplaced both when it comes to human health and for cybersecurity.

In the UK an auditor general report on NHS disruptions caused by the WannaCry virus, showed they all had unpatched or unsupported operating systems. In addition, other security controls would have prevented the rapid spread and subsequent deaths and fiscal costs. But they were incorrectly configured which allowed the virus to spread.

We can never prevent all infections and we can never anticipate every eventuality. Diseases will continue to jump the species barrier and zero-day malware will continue to appear. What we can do however is become more transparent, be more community focused and make ourselves more resilient. If not, we remain exposed to a “Disease-X” – either in the medical or cyber domains – with no known treatments or vaccines and at the risk of devastating economic and human losses.

As South Africa battles the fallout of loadshedding, we watched the economy shrink by 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2019, officially placing us in a technical recession. South Africa’s industrial decline and falling economic growth has been directly associated with decreasing electricity sustainability, as agriculture, construction, transport and communication, trade and manufacturing all declined in Q4 of 2019.

The recession was almost expected as the barometer for manufacturing confidence, the Absa PMI, showed a reduction in confidence during the first month of the year, falling to just 45.2 index points in January from 47.1 in December.

A number below 50 indicates that more manufacturers are pessimistic about the prospects for the next 12 months than those who are optimistic. The ongoing electricity supply constraints remain a downside risk and appear to be dampening sentiment in the sector, as the index measuring expected business conditions in six months’ time fell to a 15-month low.

It is not only manufacturing which is feeling the effects, as almost all sectors in the economy depend on electricity for their day-to-day running. The availability of electricity has a very significant role in both the production and consumption of goods and services as well as the country’s growth prospects. Industries such as mining and manufacturing require large amounts of electricity to operate heavy machinery around the clock and during loadshedding some producers grind to a halt. While those with furnaces and continuous processes simply cannot stop and must find or produce their own power.

While there are some solutions to mitigate the effects of loadshedding, such as investing in alternative sources of power through generators and renewable energy, many companies cannot afford large scale generators, or their operations are too large and would require too much power.

South African business owners need to safeguard their businesses financially by implementing comprehensive risk management procedures while loadshedding is in effect for the foreseeable future. Adopting the right software enables businesses to generate accurate schedules that consider constraints around people, machines, tooling, materials and flexible schedules to fit in with electricity supply .Rescheduling to run double shifts when the power is on to compensate for lost shifts when it’s cut. Hence ensuring best use of available capacity to deliver reliably to customers faster and in the most cost-effective way during the loadshedding.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software refers to the automation and integration of a company’s core business processes to help them focus on effectiveness and simplified success. Investing in an ERP system can help mitigate your organisation’s losses by planning and coordinating a number of processes, from procurement of raw materials to shifting production cycles, and distribution.

SYSPRO ERP systems are designed specifically to meet the needs of businesses and offer a variety of industry-specific features that can be used to minimize the effects of load shedding in your operations. ERP system help tighten your belt and maximize output from input. This means bedding down the planning stages in terms of inventory optimization and making sure that you are driving the necessary policies to support this.

Having the capability to create and execute an achievable schedule requires a comprehensive view of the current situation and available resources, as well as the tools to perform efficient re-scheduling if necessary.

Adopting more flexible manufacturing techniques and smart supply chains will enable manufacturers to provide products and services, reducing their time lost during loadshedding. It is not a fool-proof solution, as predictions must be based on Eskom’s published loadshedding schedule. However, it can alleviate much of the pressure that is currently on these industries.

While these are dark times for many industries, we must find a silver lining. When faced with adversities such as loadshedding, enterprises of all sizes must become more creative in running their operations. If we can learn and be agile to find a way to succeed, while working with loadshedding, imagine what organisations will be able to do when it is finally gone.