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
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