Africa Digital Success delivers independent, evidence-based cybersecurity assessments anchored in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 — giving your leadership the clarity, roadmap, and business case to act before the threat actors do.
Framework: NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0 · mapped to NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · aligned to POPIA, King IV, ISO/IEC 27001, COBIT 5
We don’t just apply a framework — we bring 30+ years of executive leadership across South African banking, public sector, higher education, and logistics environments to interpret what the findings actually mean for your organisation.
Our engagement lead has personally served as CIO across UNISA, DHL Express, and Transnet Freight Rail. We have sat in your chair.
A globally recognised, evidence-based framework covering all six functions — GOVERN, IDENTIFY, PROTECT, DETECT, RESPOND, and RECOVER — with full POPIA and King IV alignment.
We systematically test the gap between what management believes is in place and what the evidence actually shows — consistently the most valuable finding in any assessment.
Our deliverables are written for Councils, Audit Committees, and Executive Committees — not just for IT teams. Findings become decisions, not reports that sit in drawers.
We have no commercial relationships with technology vendors or product resellers. Every recommendation is driven by your best interest — nothing else.
Every assessment concludes with a prioritised, time-phased improvement roadmap with ownership, timelines, and a budget indication across three horizons.
The ADS Cybersecurity Assessment combines structured workshops, technical evidence review, and executive-level judgement across a focused one-month engagement — producing findings that are defensible, actionable, and Board-ready.
We begin by understanding how your leadership team perceives your security maturity — before looking at the evidence. This is deliberate: management perception is often the most revealing data point in the entire assessment.
The heart of the assessment. Ten structured working sessions systematically evaluate the controls actually in place across your environment — through document review, technical inspection, and targeted interviews with subject matter experts across all six NIST CSF functions.
This is where the most important insight emerges. We compare management perception ratings side-by-side with the evidence-based control ratings — mapping the gap between confidence and reality across every assessed outcome.
Not all gaps are equal. This session engages your senior leadership to agree the priority order for remediation — mapped against your risk appetite, regulatory obligations (POPIA, SARB, King IV), and strategic objectives.
We translate the prioritised gap register into a practical, time-phased improvement plan structured across three investment horizons — balancing immediate risk reduction with strategic, longer-term capability building.
The five-day reporting phase transforms all assessment outputs into a professional, Board-ready deliverable suite. Every report undergoes internal peer review before issue. The engagement concludes with a formal executive presentation.
Every NIST CSF outcome is rated on this scale — first by management perception, then by evidence. The gap between those two ratings is where the most valuable insights live.
Our assessments are never based on questionnaires alone. We apply six evidence-gathering techniques to ensure ratings are defensible and accurate.
Security policies, risk frameworks, audit reports, incident logs, vendor contracts, BCP/DR documentation, and regulatory submissions reviewed and referenced.
Structured interviews with CIO, CISO, IT Security, Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit, and selected executive and operational leaders.
Network diagrams, access control configurations, endpoint protection, SIEM and monitoring outputs, cloud security posture, and backup and recovery procedures.
Where feasible, direct observation of operational processes — change management workflows, access request procedures, and incident response drills.
All findings mapped to applicable regulatory and governance frameworks — POPIA, SARB, King IV, DHET, FSCA, PFMA — to ensure compliance-relevant prioritisation.
Findings contextualised against South African sector norms and international benchmarks, providing a meaningful frame of reference for leadership decisions.
All documents delivered in editable (Word / Excel / PowerPoint) and read-only (PDF) format.
8–12 page non-technical summary covering the five most critical risks, perception versus reality summary, and top three recommended actions.
Board · Audit Committee · Executive40–80 page comprehensive report structured across all six NIST CSF functions with detailed findings, evidence references, and recommendations.
CIO · CISO · IT Audit · Security TeamSingle-page A3 visual with radar chart comparing perceived versus actual maturity across all six NIST CSF functions, plus traffic-light status by category.
All audiences · Board packs · Workshop facilitationColour-coded matrix (green / amber / red) displaying maturity ratings for all 106 NIST CSF outcomes — instantly readable by technical and non-technical audiences.
CIO · CISO · Risk CommitteeStructured register with gap reference, NIST CSF mapping, risk rating, current versus target maturity, recommended action, owner, effort, and horizon.
CIO · IT Project Management · Internal AuditThree-horizon visual plan with Gantt-style timeline, initiative dependency map, budget indication by horizon, and KPI framework for tracking progress.
CIO · Executive Team · PMO20–30 slide professionally designed PowerPoint for the formal close-out session — structured for a 60–90 minute executive presentation with Q&A.
Board · Executive Committee · Senior ManagementCouncil-ready investment justification with modelled breach scenarios, risk-adjusted ROI analysis, regulatory cost avoidance modelling, and recommended funding pathway.
Council · CFO · Executive CommitteeOne month. 20 consultant days. Eight deliverables. A complete, evidence-based picture of your cybersecurity posture — and a clear path forward.
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