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Alan Kemp, director at Iris Network Systems, has a long history in South Africa’s internet service provider industry. So, he knows all too well how load shedding can play havoc with internet and telecommunications networks, and the teams employed to ensure their smooth functioning.
Iris Network Systems is a specialist South African service provider that specialises in network monitoring and management, with a historical focus on ISPs and operators, and currently entering the Enterprise market. Being in this space in South Africa presents several real challenges, not least of them dealing with the chaos caused by Eskom’s rolling power cuts.
In this episode of TechCentral’s TCS+ business technology show, Kemp tells Duncan McLeod about the impact of load shedding on networking monitoring and management, and the solution Iris has developed to lessen the aggravation caused to network support teams.
Kemp unpacks how Iris assists companies impacted by load shedding as well as the company’s full solution set.
If you’re an ISP or network operator, you’ll not want to miss this discussion.

Promoted | Check Point’s Rudi van Rooyen explains why cloud security is not as straightforward as organisations might assume.
The software security landscape is in a constant state of flux.
According to research undertaken by Check Point Software Technologies – an AI-powered, cloud-delivered cybersecurity platform provider protecting over 100 000 organisations worldwide – African organisations have been attacked on average 2 508 times a week in the last six months. This compares to 1 379 per organisation globally.
Some 70% of malicious files impacting African organisations were delivered via e-mail in the last 30 days, while the most common vulnerability exploit type is “information disclosure”, impacting 75% of organisations.
The race is therefore on between threat actors looking to exploit organisations and cybersecurity experts who protect sensitive organisational data.
In this episode of TCS+, Rudi van Rooyen, security engineer at Check Point Software Africa, offers a deep dive into the ins and outs of software system security for organisations of any size.
Van Rooyen unpacks:
• Why cloud migration is not a cure-all for software security issues in an organisation, and how security in a cloud setting should be approached.
• How Check Point manages to maintain a prevention-first approach to cybersecurity despite new types of attacks being developed daily.
• How AI is helping the chief information security officer cope with skills shortages and overwork by simplifying security operations.
• How Check Point’s virtual CISO function assists security leads in addressing their cybersecurity concerns.
• Insights into how much cybercrime impacts the South African economy.
• What Check Point recommends organisations do to better protect themselves against cybercriminals.
Insightful, important and sometimes technical, this discussion is critical for any information security expert or business owner looking to better protect their enterprise against cyber threats.
* This promoted content was paid for by the party concerned

MultiChoice Group has been involved in two major enforcement actions against piracy kingpins in as many weeks.
Frikkie Jonker, of MultiChoice subsidiary Irdeto, is the man leading the charge against these pirate operations, and he tells the TechCentral Show (TCS) that, despite recent arrests, the broadcaster’s war on streaming piracy is just getting started. More arrests and other enforcement actions are on the cards.
On 5 June, MultiChoice revealed it had succeeding in nailing the streaming piracy platform Waka TV in an operation that involved Western Cape police investigators. It described the dismantling of Waka TV as “a significant victory in the fight against internet streaming piracy”.
The broadcaster said it was involved in a “meticulously planned raid” on 31 May, which led to the arrest of a “key suspect involved in one of the most extensive pirate operations in Africa”.
A day later, on 6 June, the broadcaster announced that through Irdeto – and working with law enforcement agencies – it had acted against another pirate streaming operation, this one in Gauteng, where a suspect was arrested for the “illegal sale of internet streaming pirate devices that allowed individuals to access MultiChoice content”.
Jonker, who is antipiracy director in broadcasting and cybersecurity at Irdeto, takes TechCentral’s audience into some detail about the two law enforcement operations and what transpired. And he explains why MultiChoice is stepping up its battle against content thieves and pirate streaming operations in South Africa and the rest of the African continent.
In the interview, Jonker unpacks:
• How serious content piracy has become on the continent;
• Why it’s often associated with organised criminal syndicates, and why consumers are putting themselves at risk by signing up to pirate streaming platforms as well as encouraging further criminal activity;
• Why MultiChoice is now warning that, in addition to targeting the pirate platform operators, it may go after consumers who sign up to these platforms, too; and
• How the broadcaster is working with law enforcement authorities.
Don’t miss a fascinating conversation.

Artificial intelligence technologies will be used by both threat actors and those fighting cybercrime, and will bring about fundamental changes in the information security industry.
This is the view of Adrian Stanford, group chief technology officer at ESET Southern Africa, who was speaking to TechCentral’s TCS+ business technology show this week.
Stanford, who is immersed in the world of infosec, unpacks how cyberattackers are using – and will expand their use of – generative AI tools to achieve their nefarious objectives, and how cybersecurity professionals can utilise the same technologies to fight back and improve defences.
He unpacks:
• The key trends shaping the infosec landscape in 2024, including supply-chain attacks, deepfakes and nation state involvement;
• How AI factors into cybersecurity, including what threat actors are doing with the technology, and how AI will help companies like ESET fight the scourge of cybercrime;
• How future developments in AI will impact the infosec field, both good and bad; and
• The role of ESET in protecting internet users from harm as the AI arms race hots up.
Don’t miss this important discussion on a critically important topic to all organisations – big and small – in 2024.

Pinnacle CEO Tim Humphreys-Davies and his management team are early adopters in South Africa of generative AI tools in the workplace.
He joins TechCentral’s TCS+ to talk about the experience, and the impact the technology is likely to have on business operations.
Pinnacle, which is one of South Africa’s top ICT distributors, is testing the technology with the aim of assisting its channel partners with the shift to AI tools and deploying these in end-user organisations.
Humphreys-Davies explains what Pinnacle’s experience of generative AI has been to date, and he shares his views on the likely impact on productivity of deploying the technology.
In the discussion, he unpacks:
• Pinnacle’s objectives in using generative AI internally;
• The company’s learnings so far;
• The challenges encountered; and
• The impediments to deploying the technology effectively, including data availability issues, the skills gap, and the risk and complexity involved.
He also discusses Pinnacle’s exclusive distribution agreement with Nvidia – whose chips are fuelling the generative AI boom – and the industries which he believes will be impacted by AI to the greatest degree.
Lastly, Humphreys-Davies explores where the technology might be going, and how he sees Pinnacle using it in the years ahead.

Mark Todes has a fascinating story to tell. The South African technologist and entrepreneur is TechCentral’s guest in the final episode of season 1 of the popular TCS Legends podcast.
Todes, who is perhaps best known for helping fight Telkom’s attempts in the 1990s to extend its telecommunications monopoly to the internet, has a storied career that began in the mid-1970s in the pre-PC era of mainframes and minicomputers.
In this episode of TCS Legends, Todes tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the founding of Compustat with his long-time business partner Mendel Karpul and how they went on to develop a word processor called GhostWriter (the name of which Microsoft later tried to wrestle away from them).
In the show, Todes chats about:
• How he and Karpul got their start selling a bureau-based accounting solution for pharmacies – and how they got their first big break. The solution was developed in Fortran using punch cards and ran on a minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corporation;
• Their development of Survey 2000, a cadastral land surveying system – their first product for personal computers (developed by Hewlett-Packard, prior to the launch of the original IBM PC);
• The development of GhostWriter, which became an early DOS-based competitor to the likes of MultiMate, WordStar and WordPerfect.
• The launch of Internet Africa, a pioneering South African internet service provider that was later sold to Datatec (and later to Naspers);
• The early days of the internet industry in South Africa, the formation of the Internet Service Providers’ Association and the existential fight with Telkom over whether the telecommunications operator’s government-sanctioned monopoly included the provision of internet services;
• Working with Naspers, Mweb and the late Antonie Roux;
• The launch of Korbitec (and its later sale to Naspers); and
• How he and Karpul became early pioneers in the CD-ROM business.
There’s much more than this to Todes’s story, making him one of the true legends of South Africa’s technology industry. Don’t miss this concluding episode of season 1 of TCS Legends. The series will return for season 2 in 2025.