What prompted this?
Cyber Security South Africa covers the work of finding where a business is exposed, closing the gaps and then watching for the attacks that get through anyway. Describe what you need protected and compare what each provider proposes and what it costs.
Describe what you need protected and get security quotes. Replies come from independent, LEADERR APPROVED providers.
Get the Best QuoteWhere Most Work Starts
- An assessment. What you have, what is exposed and what an attacker would try first.
- Identity. Multi-factor authentication and conditional access, which stop most email compromise.
- Endpoints. Modern detection and response on every laptop, not just antivirus.
- Email. Filtering, impersonation protection and the records that stop your domain being spoofed.
- Patching. Unpatched software is still the most common way in.
- Backup. Offline or immutable copies, because ransomware looks for the backups first.
- Awareness training. The cheapest control there is, and the one most often skipped.
Testing and Monitoring
- Vulnerability scanning. Automated and regular, to catch what drifts between projects.
- Penetration testing. A person trying to get in, scoped and reported properly.
- Phishing simulation. Measures whether the training changed anything.
- Log monitoring. Alerts collected somewhere a human looks at them.
- Managed detection and response. Someone watching around the clock and allowed to act.
- Incident response retainer. Agreed in advance, because the worst time to find a specialist is during a breach.
Cyber Security Prices
Ballpark figures across the common pieces of work.
| Item | Ballpark price |
|---|---|
| Security assessment, small business | R12,000 - R45,000 |
| Penetration test, external, small scope | R25,000 - R65,000 |
| Penetration test, internal and external | R65,000 - R180,000 |
| Endpoint detection and response, per device per month | R65 - R220 |
| Managed detection and response, per user per month | R180 - R550 |
| Email security add-on, per user per month | R35 - R120 |
| Security awareness training, per user per year | R180 - R650 |
| Incident response retainer, per year | R25,000 - R120,000 |
Prices JUST UPDATED. Ballpark figures, rounded, excluding VAT. They reflect typical South African IT support and technology rates. They are not our prices or quotations, and no provider is bound by them. Confirm what each quotation includes, such as how many users or devices are covered, the response times, after-hours cover and licence fees.
Get a scoped price for your own environment rather than a range.
Get the Best QuoteWhat Affects the Price
- How many users and devices. Nearly all security licensing is priced per seat.
- What you have to protect. Card data, health records or client files raise the bar.
- Whether anything is internet facing. A public web application widens a penetration test considerably.
- Compliance pressure. A client audit or an insurer's questionnaire sets the scope for you.
- Round the clock or business hours. Overnight monitoring is the single biggest line.
- Your starting point. An environment with no multi-factor authentication needs project work before monitoring is worth buying.
What to Include in Your Request
- How many users and devices. Including phones if work email is on them.
- What you run. Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, on-site servers or cloud hosting.
- What triggered this. An incident, a client questionnaire, an insurer or a board request.
- What you already have. Antivirus, firewall, backup and whether multi-factor is on.
- Any regulated data. POPIA applies to all of it; card or health data adds more.
- Your deadline. An audit date changes who can take the work on.
Before the Provider Quotes
- Ask what the assessment produces. A prioritised remediation plan is useful; a tool's raw export is not.
- Ask who does the testing. In-house, or subcontracted to a specialist firm.
- Ask what happens after an alert. Monitoring that only emails you at 02:00 is not response.
- Separate project work from monthly fees. Hardening is a project; watching is a subscription.
- Ask about retesting. A penetration test without a retest leaves you guessing whether the fixes worked.
- Check the licences are yours. You want to keep the tenant and the subscriptions if you change provider.
Cyber Security FAQs
Where should a small business start?
Multi-factor authentication on email, a modern endpoint product on every device, patching that actually runs, and a backup that has been restored from. Those four stop the large majority of what South African small businesses actually get hit with, and they cost far less than monitoring.
What is the difference between antivirus and EDR?
Antivirus matches known bad files. Endpoint detection and response watches behaviour, records what happened and lets someone roll it back or isolate the machine. The price difference per device is small and the difference during an incident is not.
How often should we have a penetration test?
Once a year is the common answer, and after any significant change to an internet facing system. Many South African businesses are first asked for one by a large client or an insurer rather than by a regulator.
Does POPIA require any of this?
POPIA requires appropriate technical and organisational measures to secure personal information, without listing products. In practice that means you need to be able to show you assessed the risk and did something proportionate about it. See the POPIA compliance page for the wider obligations.
Is managed detection worth it for a small business?
Below about thirty staff it is usually not the next rand to spend. Get the basics in place first. Once identity, endpoints and backup are sound, monitoring is what catches the attack that beats them.
We were breached. What now?
Contain first by isolating affected machines and resetting credentials, then get a specialist in before rebuilding, because rebuilding destroys the evidence of how they got in. If personal information was involved, POPIA has notification obligations with real deadlines.
Security is quoted by most of the providers on IT Support South Africa either as its own project or inside a monthly support contract.
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