Over the years, cybersecurity has been the subject of blockbuster movies, page-turning novels, shocking memoirs and mind-boggling documentaries. And it remains a fascinating subject no matter how you look at it. Fact or fiction. Good guys or bad guys. Industry or government. There’s a lot of territory to cover and numerous ways to talk about it.

Now, ThreatQuotient has come out with a different tale about cybersecurity with our own action-adventure comic book, ThreatForce: Cyberstrike on the Savanna. 

The story weaves together three topics: saving rhinos, cyber-physical attacks and a data-driven approach to security, that make for an exciting thriller. 

Inspired by the work of Helping Rhinos, an organization that has been working for more than a decade to help rhinos survive at sustainable levels in their natural habitat, the story highlights one of their field partners, the Black Mambas, South Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit. Every day these 36 young African women walk 20 kilometers, checking perimeter fences for signs of intrusion and alerting armed patrol units if they detect suspicious activity. They also dispose of snares they find and release rhinos and other trapped animals before they are harmed. In the story, tech guru, Zingisa, and her patrolling team face a type of threat they’ve never seen before and the clock is ticking…

The story also brings in the threat of sophisticated attacks on cyber-physical systems which, in today’s hyper-connected environments, can put lives and livelihoods at risk. Food, water, fuel and even healthcare depend on cyber-physical systems and attacks targeting systems in these sectors have made headline news over the last few years. Here, we follow the risk of connected medical devices that are a weak link in healthcare industry security because they often go unmonitored for vulnerabilities, are difficult to patch, or were never designed with security in mind.

Zingisa needs to rely on her tech skills to see if she can enhance her team’s on-the-ground patrolling skills with cybersecurity measures to protect the rhinos. Hint: The ThreatQ Platform and DataLinq Engine come into play.

No spoilers here, though. You’ll have to download your copy of ThreatForce: Cyberstrike on the Savanna to see how it all comes together and how it ends. 

And if you’re interested in joining us in our quest to save rhinos by supporting Helping Rhinos, learn more here.