With its unique regulatory landscape and emphasis on data sovereignty, the Middle East is forging a distinct path to cloud-native security. From automation and IAM to AI workload protection and compliance, the region’ s measured transition to the cloud offers global lessons in secure Digital Transformation. Crystal Morin, Cybersecurity Strategist, Sysdig Threat Research Team, explores the implementation of cloud security in the region and Sysdig’ s role in shaping this future.

What makes the ME’ s cloud-native security approach unique?

Multiple Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, require certain data to be stored within national borders. This emphasis on localisation and the regulatory prioritisation of security and government oversight are key factors as to why the region’ s cloud security trends differ from much of the world.

What are the key advantages and opportunities offered in implementing automation in cloud security?

In the cloud, attacks happen fast. Sysdig’ s 555 Benchmark for Threat Detection and Response calls for the ability to neutralise a threat in 10 minutes or less. One of the best ways to cut incident investigation and response times is through the use of automation. Automation enables scalability and consistent security enforcement, improving overall defensive agility. If threat actors are scripting and automating aspects of their attacks, then defenders can no longer rely on manual analysis. By automating response actions to mitigate threats like malware, cryptominers, and container drift, security teams can stop and contain threats before they materialise, leaving time for thorough investigation after the environment is secured.

The ME region stands out with only 20 % of organisations maintaining risky service accounts, compared to 60 % globally. What contributes to this success and how can organisations shifting to the cloud maintain this?

The Middle East region’ s strong identity and access management is likely due to the majority of its organisations still using on-premises infrastructure – which IT teams own and manage and where an individual’ s access is often limited to a single network or domain. The region’ s strict governance will likely contribute to a smooth transition from onpremises to cloud IAM, which has otherwise proven to be a global challenge. With strategic planning and investment in cloud-native IAM tools, Middle Eastern organisations can maintain strong IAM processes during and after cloud migration. During and after the transition, organisations should start with identity asset inventory and then define and enforce IAM governance policies.

They should also continuously monitor for threats and audit policies, accounts and privileges. IAM

Crystal Morin, Cybersecurity Strategist, Sysdig Threat Research Team

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