Faculty of Commerce, Innovation and Technology

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Author: search.filters.author.BRIGHTON GEZANIStart date: 2021

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    DEVELOPING A CYBERSECURITY FRAMEWORK FOR MITIGATING RANSOMWARE AND INSIDER THREATS IN ZIMBABWE’S MINING SECTOR
    (The Catholic University of Zimbabwe, 2026-06-19) BRIGHTON GEZANI
    Zimbabwe mining sector has been digitized resulting in improved operational performance but at the same time an increased vulnerability to ransomware and insider threats. With the integration of interconnected operational technology and enterprise systems, cybersecurity threats have become more devastating and destructive, especially to the mining organizations. The paper is a formulated integrated framework towards mitigating ransomware and insider threats in the mining industry. Quantitative research design was used with data gathered on mining professionals at technological and managerial levels. The analysis of data was done to reliability testing, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression modelling. Regression model was found to have a high explanatory power as it explained 52 percent of the variance in the exposure to cyber incidences. The results indicate that the most effective predictor of less incident exposure is governance maturity, in turn, ransomware preparedness, security awareness, insider threat mitigation, and technological control maturity. The findings prove that socio technological integration, and not technology protection alone, is the basis of cybersecurity resilience in the mining setting. The mitigation of ransomware and insider threats involves the congruence of executive oversight, systematic preparedness systems, behavioral maturity, insider access control, and enhanced technological controls. Based on these results, the paper suggests the Mining Industry Ransomware and Insider Threat (MIRIT) Framework; it is a layered and governance-oriented framework adapted to an industrial setting. The research marks a contribution to the empirical data on the state of the mining industry in a developing economy and provides a practical proposal on how to make cybersecurity robust. Future studies must focus on longitudinal application of the framework and investigate adaptive strategies on cybersecurity in changing industrial threat environments.