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With the rapid advancement of technologies in the era of Industry 4.0, the interconnected nature of operations and systems is introducing a rapidly changing landscape of digitized and connected systems. Cybercrime is considered as possibly the greatest threat to connected systems worldwide, and therefore there exists a large drive in engineering to include cybersecurity in the design, development and maintenance of smart cyber-physical systems. Traditionally, the cybersecurity space was considered the responsibility of Information Technology (IT) professionals, where the greater IT infrastructure was required to keep these engineering systems safe. However, through the evolution of engineering and control systems, the IT infrastructure has started to become more integrated with these systems, improving the efficiency of the systems, but also making them more susceptible to cyber-attacks. These changes mean that securing these systems cannot remain the sole responsibility of the IT professionals, as systems must be designed with cybersecurity in mind. Considering that engineers are designing and developing more integrated systems, there exists a knowledge gap in the field of cybersecurity engineering and engineers' understanding of their cybersecurity responsibilities. This study aimed to determine the level of security that is currently considered in standard electrical engineering projects in a typical academic environment. This baseline serves as a motivation to develop a practical approach to assist engineering students in considering cybersecurity when developing engineering systems and products. INDEX TERMS Engineering education, Engineering design, Security, Secure software design.

Most traditional software development methodologies do not explicitly include a standardised method for incorporating information security into their life cycles. It is argued that security considerations should provide input into every phase of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), from requirements gathering to design, implementation, testing and deployment. Therefore, to build more secure software applications, an improved software development process is required. The Secure Software Development Model (SecSDM), as described in this paper, is based on many of the recommendations provided by relevant international standards and best practices, for example, the ISO 7498-2 (1989) standard which addresses the underlying security services and mechanisms that form an integral part of the model.

Background: The urgency to enforce the Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act is building up within South Africa, triggered by the appointment of the Information Regulator for POPI on 01 December 2016. However, for data management practitioners, the absence of a practical guideline on how to legally process personal information of employees, customers or other juristic persons in line with the POPI Act poses a day-to-day technical challenge, especially for those embarking on a maiden journey to comply with the POPI Act.Objectives: The objective of this article is to explore and analyse the unique perspectives of data management professionals who are vested with the responsibility of driving the successful enforcement of the POPI Act within their respective organisations, with the end goal of formulating a practical guideline for the enforcement of the POPI Act.Method: To achieve the objectives of this research article, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive, convenience sample of 16 data management professionals within companies in South Africa. A recording of their views was obtained through one-on-one interviews and a group interview.Results: From the semi-structured interviews, group interview and response to the questions, several findings and learnings were elicited. Zooming into these findings showed close similarities in the actions taken by data management professionals operating in a similar industry. Based on these results, a high-level sequence of steps on how to enforce the POPI Act was formulated.Conclusion: Based on the formulated sequence of steps, it is safe to conclude that the actions of data management professionals can be used to create a practical guideline to enforce the POPI Act. However, to standardise these guidelines across the data management function, there is a need to perform testing with a wider spectrum of data management professionals.

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