Omnia cyberattack highlights security risk

As various companies navigate the coronavirus minefield and implications of the government’s restrictions on travel and gatherings, someone has launched a cyberattack on diversified chemicals group Omnia’s IT infrastructure.

This is a stark reminder that cybersecurity is an ever present risk for all businesses. It must be difficult to assess and understand the cybersecurity risk facing a firm until an actual attack takes place.

This is a subject commonly treated as the exclusive domain of chief information officers. It is treated as an IT issue and not necessarily an important element of business strategy. But the reality is that cyber risk is a business risk. Companies are vulnerable to sophisticated attacks by cyber criminals.

This is a subject CEOs barely address in their engagements with shareholders and investors. To be fair, executives are rarely questioned about their state of readiness in the event of a cyberattack. This is one thing even the shareholder activists often overlook at results presentations and AGMs.

Omnia CEO Seelan Gobalsamy has moved to allay panic about the attack. The firm’s production facilities and operations continue to work as usual and the full functionality of the IT infrastructure system has been restored, says Gobalsamy.

We know Omnia can survive a cyberattack, but can we say the same about the country’s other big companies?

Perhaps the time has come for investors and shareholders to find out if their companies have adequate processes to respond immediately in the event of an attack.

GROWTHPOINT PROPERTIES

SA’s largest real-estate company, Growthpoint Properties (GRT), with assets of more than R160bn, may have been able to manage its way through storms of challenges before and to still deliver better-than-inflation returns over the past 19 years, but even its seasoned management team could come short in 2020.

Last week, GRT released its weakest set of financial results in years when it grew its dividend per share by a measly 0.2% in the six months to December. The company, which has a June year-end, said it expects its overall dividend growth for the year to be nominal, if at all.

It’s sobering that a company the size of Growthpoint will deliver such weak returns even though over the past few years, it has invested in Australia, Poland and Romania, and later in 2020 in the UK through buying a controlling stake in Capital & Regional.

Growthpoint’s CEO Norbert Sasse said last week that in the recent past, offshore investments meant the group could achieve dividend growth in line with, or better than, inflation. In the latest financials they stopped the dividend from actually falling, he said.

Sasse might be hopeful that offshore operations can save Growthpoint again but SA is about to suffer from the effects of coronavirus. Shopping centres have not yet been instructed to close all stores.

Panic buying has, however, begun to sweep the country but this spike in trade won’t last forever. Pressure on SA retailers from store closures coupled with intermittent electricity load-shedding could be enough to ruin Growthpoint’s year and see the dividend shrink.