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FINAL WORD
Nation state
attacks, the new
phishing and the
importance of
education
The Middle East has seen a recent uptick in
the number of nation state attacks, in line with
geopolitical tensions in the region. We caught
up with Alister Shepherd – Director, Middle East
and Africa, for Mandiant, the consulting arm of
FireEye, to find out about the regional threat
landscape and what it’s really like to be on the
frontline of incident response.
C
Can you give an overview of the threat landscape within
this region?
I think in this region, more than any other, we see nation state
actors as the primary threat. The geopolitical situation here leads to
increased threat and we see a correspondingly high volume of nation
state attributed attacks.
How are organisations and enterprises responding to
these attacks?
We’ve definitely seen an increase in maturity and investment. I think
the biggest thing we’ve seen is an investment in technology aimed
at defending against these attacks.
In this region, maybe more than anywhere else, we see a lot of
organisations, particularly bigger ones such as petrochemical, financial
services and government, investing heavily in technology. But I think
there’s definitely more work to be done around the kind of strategy
and approach, and people and process behind the technology.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
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