Industrial control systems were built to be isolated. Connecting them to everything else has been the quiet risk of Africa’s mining modernisation, and it is now being retrofitted against.
Rockwell Automation said on 1 September 2026 that it had completed a cybersecurity and modernisation project with Mimosa Mine in Zimbabwe, working with Mine Elect, a Zimbabwe-based speciality distributor that provided the local engineering, implementation and on-site support.
The stated scope was network architecture, security segmentation, and more controlled mechanisms for system access, data transfer, monitoring and recovery. In operational technology terms, that is the standard remediation list: separate the plant network from the corporate one, control what crosses between them, and make sure you can see and restore what you have.
Why mining sites are exposed
“This project reflects a growing focus across the mining sector on operational resilience and cyber risk management as digital technologies become more deeply embedded in day-to-day operations,” said Rodrick Naidoo, country director for English-speaking Africa at Rockwell Automation.
The exposure is structural rather than negligent. Mines run equipment with service lives measured in decades, on control systems that predate the assumption of network connectivity. Adding remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, and centralised reporting to that base delivers real efficiency and connects a plant floor to an office network and, eventually, to the internet.
Segmentation is the unglamorous answer, and the reason it keeps appearing in these announcements is that it is usually what was missing.
A local execution partner
The detail worth noting is Mine Elect’s role. Industrial security work fails on sustainment more often than on design, and a vendor project that leaves no in-country capability behind tends not to survive the first staff change. Zimbabwe has been steadily building out its digital base, from new cross-border fibre routes to enterprise services, and the constraint is increasingly skills rather than equipment.
Comparable capability has been arriving elsewhere in the region through the carriers, with Liquid extending managed cybersecurity services into Botswana last year.
Rockwell did not disclose the value of the project or the timeline for its delivery, and it cited no specific incident that prompted the work.
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