Mining
Mining operations span vast geographies — from corporate head offices in Johannesburg to remote shafts across Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, and Northern Cape. Securing this distributed infrastructure demands solutions that work in harsh environments, over constrained connectivity, and across the boundary between information technology and operational technology. OAS delivers managed security, Citrix remote access, and resilient backup designed for the realities of mining.
The IT Challenge Facing Mining Operations
South Africa's mining sector contributes approximately 8% of GDP and employs over 475,000 people. Operations span corporate offices, processing plants, and remote mine sites — often connected by satellite or microwave links with as little as 2-10 Mbps and latency exceeding 600 ms. Underground temperatures can exceed 50 degrees Celsius in deep-level gold mines. Dust, vibration, humidity, and power instability are constant.
Cyberattacks targeting mining operations are escalating. Ransomware campaigns halt production across corporate systems. More sophisticated threat actors probe SCADA and industrial control systems that manage ventilation, hoisting, conveyors, and processing plants. A successful attack on these systems threatens not only production but worker safety.
Regulatory obligations compound the pressure. The Mine Health and Safety Act, POPIA, King IV governance principles, and MPRDA reporting requirements all place demands on IT infrastructure. Mining companies need security controls that satisfy auditors while functioning reliably at the most remote shaft.
How OAS Secures Mining Operations
OAS combines enterprise IT security expertise with a practical understanding of distributed, harsh-environment operations. Our Three Pillar methodology — Protect, Detect, Recover — addresses the full lifecycle of a security incident across every site in your operation.
Secure Remote Access Over Constrained Links
Citrix virtual desktops and applications deliver corporate systems to any authorised device at any site. Engineers and geologists at remote locations access ERP (SAP), mine planning (Deswik, Datamine, Surpac), geological modelling, fleet management, and safety systems — with sensitive data remaining centralised. Only screen pixels travel to the endpoint.
As Southern Africa's longest-standing Citrix Platinum Partner, OAS brings over 40 years of virtualisation expertise to mining environments. HDX adaptive transport and EDT protocol optimisation deliver responsive performance over VSAT satellite and microwave links where other solutions fail. Your workforce accesses the same applications at a Northern Cape shaft as they do at Johannesburg head office.
Endpoint Protection That Works Offline
SentinelOne autonomous endpoint detection and response (EDR) protects every device across your operation — head office workstations, plant control room terminals, and site laptops. Behavioural AI detection does not rely on cloud connectivity or signature updates. Protection continues in full at remote sites with intermittent or no internet access.
Ransomware rollback restores affected files automatically. When a production-halting attack strikes, recovery happens at the endpoint without waiting for a backup restoration cycle.
IT/OT Network Segmentation
In mining, IT security failures can cause physical harm. A ransomware infection in corporate email must never reach the systems controlling ventilation fans, winders, crushers, or conveyors. NetScaler and Nutanix Flow microsegmentation enforce strict separation between corporate IT networks and operational technology (SCADA, PLC, DCS) systems — aligned to the IEC 62443 standard and Purdue Model framework.
OAS operates at Levels 3.5 to 5 of the Purdue Model, providing the segmentation and security controls that prevent IT threats from reaching OT levels where physical processes are controlled.
Centralised Multi-Site Monitoring
N-able Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) provides 24/7 visibility across your entire IT estate — head office, processing plants, and the most remote sites — from a single console. Automated alerting identifies issues before they affect operations. Patch management addresses vulnerabilities across distributed infrastructure where manual updates are impractical.
Multi-tenant architecture allows OAS to manage multiple sites and subsidiaries while maintaining strict separation between each operation.
Resilient Backup Without On-Site Appliances
Cove Data Protection delivers encrypted, immutable cloud backups from any location with connectivity. Direct-to-cloud architecture eliminates the need for on-site backup appliances at remote mine sites — reducing hardware, maintenance, and the risk of local backup failure. All backup data remains within South African borders, maintaining data sovereignty.
Recovery is tested and documented. When an incident occurs, your recovery time is measured in hours, not days.
SIEM and Compliance Reporting
Splunk centralised log aggregation correlates security events across IT and OT environments. Compliance dashboards support Mine Health and Safety Act requirements, POPIA obligations, King IV governance reporting, and MPRDA data retention standards. Incident forensics provide the evidence needed when a security event triggers regulatory scrutiny.
Compliance Across Multiple Frameworks
Mining organisations in South Africa operate under overlapping regulatory obligations:
- POPIA — employee records, contractor biometrics, community stakeholder information, and occupational health surveillance data all require documented protection - Mine Health and Safety Act (MHSA) — where IT systems support safety-critical operations such as ventilation control, gas monitoring, seismic monitoring, and emergency communication, their integrity and availability are compliance matters - King IV Governance Principles — JSE-listed mining companies must demonstrate board-level accountability for IT risk management, cybersecurity oversight, and disaster recovery planning - MPRDA — Social and Labour Plan reporting, production data, and environmental monitoring data must be retained and reported accurately - DMRE Reporting — digital submission of monthly production returns, safety statistics, and environmental performance data demands data integrity and auditability - Carbon Tax Act — emissions monitoring data requires accurate tracking and reporting controls
OAS maps your security controls directly to these frameworks, giving your governance and compliance teams auditable evidence when regulators or auditors require it.
Why Mining Companies Choose OAS
- 40+ years of enterprise IT experience across Southern Africa
- Citrix Platinum Partner — proven remote access delivery over VSAT and microwave links
- Offline endpoint protection — SentinelOne operates without constant network access
- IT/OT segmentation expertise — protecting the boundary between corporate and operational systems, aligned to IEC 62443
- Multi-site, multi-country management — centralised visibility across head office, plants, and remote sites in South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe
- 24/7 managed service — mining runs three shifts, 365 days. OAS matches that operational cadence
- South African data sovereignty — all backup and cloud data remains within SA borders
Your Operations Depend on Secure Infrastructure
A single ransomware incident can halt production across your entire operation — or worse, compromise the safety systems your workforce relies on. OAS's free security assessment evaluates your current defences from head office to the most remote shaft and provides a practical roadmap to resilient, enterprise-grade protection.