Intelligent CISO Issue 18 | Page 18

cyber trends RARELY DOES A DAY PASS WITHOUT NEWS OF A NEW CYBERATTACK OR THREAT. AND WHILE MANY OF THESE TRANSCEND COUNTRY OR REGIONAL BORDERS, THERE ARE SOME TRENDS AND NUANCES THAT CAN BE FOUND IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD. FOR THIS GITEX EDITION, WE PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND HEAR FROM INDUSTRY EXPERTS ABOUT SOME OF THE MAIN CYBER-RISKS TO THE REGION’S ORGANISATIONS, WITH ADVICE ON HOW THESE CAN BE MITIGATED. C ISOs the world over are facing an unprecedented challenge. The cyberthreat landscape is constantly evolving as attackers adopt savvy new tricks and tools to bypass even the most sophisticated defences in order to wreak havoc – often for financial gain. Managing cyber-risk in the Middle East question ‘are there any region-specific challenges to managing cyber-risk?’ Here’s what they had to say: Yazan A Hammoudah, Senior Manager, Systems Engineering MEA, FireEye No global region is spared; the world now a sprawl of connected devices, rendering country borders invisible in the digital world. However, there are some trends and nuances that can be observed in different parts of the world – based on cultural, political and financial variances. Intelligent CISO spoke to experts at a number of leading cybersecurity vendors about some of the key regional threats and how these can be addressed. Their responses are all based around the 18 In the Middle East, the volatile political situation and rapid adoption of technology 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 Issue 18 | www.intelligentciso.com