Karin Hone, CISO at Barloworld; Celia Mantshiyane, CISO at RMB; Justin Williams, head of group information security at MTN Group; and Pepkor’s Duncan Rae. (Photograph by Strike a Pose)
South Africa-based chief information security officers (CISOs) have laid out their top cyber security concerns, with third-party risk (60%) front and centre.
This is one of the biggest takeaways from the preliminary results of the 2026 edition of the ITWeb Brainstorm CISO Survey, hosted as part of ITWeb’s annual Security Summit and in partnership with MTN Business.
The CISOs’ worries are escalating as South African organisations continuously fall victim to cyber attacks, coupled by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven threats.
An overview of this year’s respondents shows the biggest segment (35.8%) work for organisations with over 10 000 employees, a departure from last year’s sample where the top employee size grouping was between 1 000 to 5 000. The largest segment of respondents, just under a third, work in financial services.
In addition, the CISOs that completed the survey were most likely to report to the group CIO (43%). In terms of number of direct reports, 30% have a…
