TRENDING
Jawad Toukna, Director Regional Sales
Emerging Markets, Forcepoint
There is no doubt that the Middle East has
made strides in technology adoption, but
the region is still vulnerable to cyberattacks.
According to Trend Micro, there were 1.7
billion ransomware attacks detected globally
in 2018. Out of these, 2.4 million were in the
UAE, followed by Kuwait and Bahrain with
1.9 million and 1.2 million respectively.
Yazan A Hammoudah, Senior Manager,
Systems Engineering MEA, FireEye
Ransomware is a great example of how
cybersecurity affects us all here in the Middle
East, from the boardroom right down to
employee level. Ransomware is not a new
threat, but understanding how companies
can fall victim to this and other ‘traditional’
threats demonstrates how cybersecurity
must be an integral part of a company’s
strategy and how firms need to understand
puts the region at risk when it comes to
cyberattacks. In the first quarter of 2019
alone, FireEye identified large volumes of
Iranian state-sponsored attacks targeting
organisations in the Middle East, including
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), UAE,
Bahrain, Lebanon and Kuwait, and as well
as other financially motivated advanced
persistent threat (APT) groups. These nation-
state groups are looking at a large-scale
espionage across some key sectors in the
Middle East such as government, aerospace,
energy and utilities.
Recently, we have noticed breaches against
the education sector in the region, especially
when it comes to universities specialised in
research. The education sector has the least
investment when it comes to cybersecurity
for many reasons – one such reason is that
it’s important for students to have an open
environment and freedom to use devices.
Since these devices are not controlled or
monitored like a closed enterprise, they are
an easy target for cybercriminals.
The attackers are more evolved, well-
organised and using highly targeted
techniques that leave technology-only
security strategies exposed. To identify
and stop attackers, organisations need to
understand how they think, how they work
and what they want. Adopting strategic
security intelligence solutions will allow
organisations to move from reactive
measures to proactive threat hunting.
24
INTELLIGENTCIO
“
RANSOMWARE
IS A GREAT
EXAMPLE OF HOW
CYBERSECURITY
AFFECTS US
ALL HERE IN
THE MIDDLE
EAST, FROM THE
BOARDROOM
RIGHT DOWN TO
EMPLOYEE LEVEL.
analytics technologies, something that our
survey showed is not happening in more
than 50% of organisations in the Middle
East (despite 90% of them saying this is a
crucial step to effectively stop breaches).
The cyberthreat landscape is evolving
rapidly and companies need a different
approach, as the security challenges posed
by Digital Transformation projects need
addressing. One such approach is a dynamic,
risk-adaptive product such as Forcepoint’s
Dynamic Data Protection.
Jawad Toukna, Director Regional Sales
Emerging Markets, Forcepoint
and protect against human behaviour
(clicking on a link) which may unwittingly
open an organisation up to risks.
Recently, Forcepoint conducted a survey
across the Middle East and found that while
69% of IT leaders within organisations have
high levels of trust in their employees, 50%
also acknowledge that human behaviour is
most damaging to trust.
Forcepoint believes that by taking a
‘human-centric’ approach to cyberthreats,
organisations can prevent breaches. Part of
this approach means adopting behavioural
With human-centric behaviour-analytics at
its core, Forcepoint Dynamic Data Protection
applies an anonymous and continuously
updated behavioural risk score to establish a
baseline of ‘normal’ behaviour of each end-
user on corporate or unmanaged networks.
Forcepoint’s intelligent systems, informed
by the individual risk assessment, then apply
a range of security countermeasures to
address and counteract the identified risk.
In this way, organisations can be protected
against insider threats, sabotage and
corporate espionage.
Hassan El-Banna, Business Development
Manager, META, Genetec
In the Middle East, organsations are most
susceptible to attacks. According to a study
by McAfee which reported that the UAE is the
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