Cybersecurity

LAWtrust is a world-class security provider in the digital world to the ultimate benefit of the physical world. As a human-centric company, which secures identity documents, protects companies and supports communities all around, LAWtrust is a trusted expert in areas of cryptographic-based security such as digital certificates, PKI, digital signing, encryption, integrity and non-repudiation. The company has an impressive customer base of almost 1000 clients across the government, business and financial sector. 

LAWtrust’s vision is to use cyber technology to create a safe environment to live and work. The company’s understanding was that the foundation of trust in the internet and IT systems was lacking focus, namely the authenticity of identities and transactions. Subsequently, this has been proven time and time again for victims of phishing and spoofing attacks being defrauded of millions.  

Over the years, LAWtrust has become a crucial element in South African society, through the trust services provided to government and industry. Some of these significant feats include: 

  • The South African national ID card security, and border control biometrics  
  • Digital certificates for banking systems protecting billions of Rands monthly 
  • Digital signature solutions in banking, insurance and other industries which have assisted these companies to operate optimally even under lockdown conditions. 

With the aim to empower and provide digital security to millions of South African citizens, it has become a global aim for LAWtrust, taking digital security, digital signatures, and trust services to the world. 

An Accomplished and Visionary Leader 

Maeson Maherry is the Co-founder of LAWtrust Information Security Solutions, Africa’s leading digital security experts. He is a pioneer in security. Over a period of 14 years, he with his partner exponentially grew LAWtrust from a two-person operation to a business, whose leaps and bounds managed to be catapulted the company to the frontlines of global cybersecurity and Trust Services. 

Maeson has been involved in the security sector since 1997. Prior to committing his energy to the cybersecurity sector, he worked as an electronics engineer in digital telecommunications. His background in system design and problem-solving has proven to be incredibly useful in the digital space in the era of cyber threats, crime, and warfare. Leading LAWtrust into the future, Maeson is determined to spearhead trust in information systems through establishing authenticity, accountability, and privacy in data messages. The strides he has made within the sector and his passion have cemented his position as a visionary leader with a proven track record. 

Ensuring Security with Cyber-Proof Solutions  

LAWtrust has been a pioneer of cybersecurity solutions since its inception and has specifically led in the field of digital trust services (DTS). DTS is well-aligned to business risk management requirements and the company developed a framework to focus organisations on this stack that builds on one another to achieve business trust. The stack has a foundation layer of secure availability which is followed by positive identity, data integrity, accountability and finally privacy. 

In some of the largest-scale cybersecurity solutions in the world, LAWtrust has implemented solutions based on this stack to achieve defences against intrusion and compromise, but also prevent insider threats and even detect and prevent ghost employees and suppliers, which defraud the government of millions every year. 

The company plays a role in many areas from SSL/TLS certificates through to securing banks and the countries ID card enrolment and production system. 

Delivering Digital Trust Services for Security Risks 

As a trusted security provider, LAWtrust has developed digital transformation strategies that meet the needs of users across the board. By tackling Digital Transformation (using digital signatures as a business enabler), creating Managed Services (security requires crypto), ensuring Automatic Signature Verification and having a Fraud Management framework, the company continues to make advancements within the sector. This has succeeded in making it the de facto benchmark in providing digital trust services, ultimately putting the trusted provider at the top of the industry.  

With reference to the digital trust services framework, LAWtrust recognised that Privacy is the result of many layers of cybersecurity working cumulatively to achieve the result. Encryption of data is definitely a critical element of control for POPI, GDPR and privacy compliance, but more is needed. Specifically, digital signatures support the consent collection and cyber contracting element of reducing the compliance risk of an organisation. 

In turn, Maeson believes that accountability cannot be enforced if data integrity is not guaranteed as this otherwise reduced the evidential weight. Evidential weight and security are not guaranteed unless identities are verified with a governed (auditable) ID proofing process to ensure authenticity and identities are asserted through strong authentication techniques like two-factor authentication, biometrics, and device certificates. 

Finally, the whole environment is dependent on being available of which a primary element is security, especially identifying and managing the vulnerabilities in this ever-changing landscape. 

Moreover, LAWtrust offers numerous digital trust services including: Strong Authentication, Digital Certificates, Digital Signatures, and Encryption. 

Being Customer-Centric to Innovative Solutions 

LAWtrust drives innovation predominantly through customer experience management, where its aim is not only to ensure that service is delivered to make customers satisfied and happy, but also to listen to customer issues and respond by evolving product roadmaps to address customer requirements. In this way, product development is not done at the whim of LAWtrust executives, but rather as an evolution of real customers’ needs which are answered. The company also has strategic technology partnerships in some areas in which collaboration between partners and customers, results in innovation and large-scale success stories.   

Implementing New Technologies for Digital Identity 

Disruptive technologies are not always new technologies but have often been around in another form and price. They have now reached the tipping point of mainstream interest and potential for adoption.  

As an innovator in the space, LAWtrust was an early adopter of offering services as a managed service from a private cloud infrastructure which maintained the absolute security required but has now grown to incorporate public cloud security and solutions as well. This area alone has allowed the company to extend document signing services internationally and meet the data residency requirements of other countries. Similarly, LAWtrust is applying state-of-the-art AI/machine learning in face recognition solutions for both ID proofing of customers, employees, suppliers and business partners as well as used for strong authentication. 

Addressing Challenges of Serving Communities  

Maeson feels LAWtrust has been challenged by its own rapid growth in both people and geographies which can be summarised as scaling. It has been important to recognise that increasing capacity in a company is not only a function of buying servers and hiring people, but rather of a multitude of interlinked processes which have to scale as well, he says. Nothing is more important, however, than keeping focussed on what the customers want and delivering outstanding service and structuring everything to support this goal. 

Invaluable Accolades and Recognition 

LAWtrust continues its upward trajectory, and has been made it evident by the noteworthy firsts since its inception. Those are as follows:    

  • The first African Certificate Authority to achieve ISO 21188 and WebTrust Certification   
  • The first African Certificate Authority to be included in the Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL)   
  • The first Certificate Authority to be accredited for the provision of Advanced Electronic Signatures under the ECT Act  
  • The only African Trust Centre to be contracted by the EU to extend identity and signature validation through the Future Trust Project  
  • Two patents in biometrics to increase security with low-cost fingerprint readers in developing economy use cases. Further, getting FIDO U2F certification and membership to the FIDO Alliance 

LAWtrust has received numerous awards over the years. Recently, the company has been recognized as one of the top 10 digital signature providers in the world for its breakthrough to do remote ID proofing for high assurance signatures.   

Since entering the Middle East market last year, LAWtrust has already won multiple rising star and solutions provider of the year awards in the cybersecurity space. 

The Future Ahead 

Commenting on the future, Maeson says, "Recent discussion has revolved around Covid-19 and remote work, but this has really shown us that some of the business models we have are really outdated and not totally necessary. The pandemic and the resulting lockdown have accelerated digitalization, and is highlighting that it is an unstoppable evolution for organisations. The future of digital trust services is as a strategic element of all business into the future and LAWtrust is focussed on being at the forefront of enabling trustworthy business and living for all.