TECH TALK
“Accelerated
innovation
and adoption
of new
technologies
are making
businesses
more agile and
competitive
in today’s
crowded
markets.”
Looking at 2017/2018, what does
Tenable see as the main demands of
end-user enterprises and government
entities in the region in terms of
changing business environments and
the security of the same? In comparison to more developed
markets, are enterprises in the region
adequately aware of and/or preparing
sufficiently for more advanced data
breaches, especially in the age of
private/hybrid cloud adoption?
Accelerated innovation and adoption
of new technologies are making
businesses more agile and competitive
in today’s crowded markets. But these
new additions to corporate networks
add scale and complexity that make it
more challenging for security teams to
effectively identify and reduce cyber
risk. Private industry and government
entities are looking for security solutions
that enable them to keep up with the
fast-paced business environment, while
also maintaining their security and
compliance posture. Building and maintaining a strategic
and resilient cybersecurity programme
doesn’t happen overnight, but
enterprises and government entities
in the UAE are taking steps toward
improved cybersecurity. We’re starting
to see a more concerted focus on
improving cybersecurity across the
country, which is critical as the threat
landscape continues to evolve. The UAE
National Electronic Security Authority
(NESA) outlines strict security guidelines
for organisations, which is just one
initiative put forth to improve the
country’s cybersecurity posture.
The Middle East is notorious for a
more reluctant adoption of cloud/
virtualised architecture than other
more developed markets. How is
Tenable adequately reassuring current
and potential clients that workloads
migrating off dedicated servers and
visibility into critical data can remain
in the hands of management?
C
an you give a brief history
of Tenable in the region and
products and solutions provided?
Tenable has more than 23,000 customers
worldwide and over 1.6 million end users.
While we continue to expand our global
footprint, we’re also growing our presence
in the Middle East. Tenable opened its
Dubai office in October 2015, which
now serves as a hub for our operations
in the region. Tenable currently has sales
and technical resources in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia,
covering all of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) from those two main hubs.
Customers leverage Tenable technology
to identify all assets within their
environment and assess for vulnerabilities
or weaknesses that could be leveraged by
a malicious threat actor.
www.intelligentcio.com
The perception that cloud is any more
vulnerable than on-premises solutions
is a myth. It doesn’t matter where
your infrastructure or applications
reside - if they’re connected then
they’re vulnerable. What is important is
accepting this and addressing the issue.
Leveraging cloud technologies can
be hugely beneficial from a security
standpoint, enabling organisations to
address the significant technical debt
of outdated systems and the flaws
associated with them. As organisations
move from traditional IT to the far more
agile approaches to providing compute
power, security can be baked into the
software development cycle earlier to
ensure a more secure foundation.
That said, cloud isn’t always the right
choice for every organisation, which is
why Tenable offers both cloud and on-
premises products to service customers
with varying security, compliance and
business needs.
Cloud adoption, DevOps, big data
and mobility have been big talking
points for 2016/2017. How is
Tenable advising enterprises and/or
government entities to best prioritise
investments for 2017-2018 across
these operations in order to better
reinforce their asset security?
Networks, assets and threats have all
changed dramatically over the last
few years, thanks to the adoption of
cloud, DevOps and other technology
trends. But security solutions haven’t
kept up, creating a massive gap in an
organisation’s ability to truly understand
their Cyber Exposure. This Cyber Exposure
gap has left organisations vulnerable
and exposed. Organisations need to
think strategically about their security
programmes, ensuring that they’re
investing in the right solutions and tools
to tackle today’s modern IT challenges.
This is why Tenable launched the
industry’s first cloud-based vulnerability
management platform to secure the full
range of assets in the modern elastic
IT environment, including containers
and web applications. With Tenable,
customers gain unparalleled visibility
into the security status of their modern
IT infrastructure. Tenable is enabling our
clients to gain critical visibility into the CI/
CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous
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