Thipe Khaole, ACSA. Photo: Karolina Komendera

No matter how much you think ahead, cybersecurity is always about playing catch-up. “It’s constantly having to plug holes, plug vulnerabilities, and educate users. Do you ever feel like you’re a step ahead of the adversary? Never,” says Thipe Khaole, GM: InfoSec (CISO) at Airports Company South Africa (ACSA).

He says we’ll never be ahead because some adversaries have too many resources focused on gaining access. “A few security analysts working overtime on a weekend versus nation-state actors? They’re using automation for almost everything, where we have automation for certain things, but are still doing a lot manually.”