21 minute read
NEWS
DATA BREACHES COST $6.53M ON AVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: IBM
IBM Security has announced the results of a Middle East study examining the financial impact of data breaches on organisations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Based on the in-depth analysis, the cost of a data breach in KSA and UAE has risen by 9.4% over the past year. These incidents cost companies studied in the region $6.53 million per breach on average, which is higher than the global average of $3.86 million per breach and is the second highest average breach cost amongst the 17 regions studied.
Advertisement
In KSA and UAE, breaches cost companies $188 per lost or stolen record on average, which represents an Infor has announced a fully contactless suite of applications for the hospitality industry, specifically designed for hotels and resorts, casinos and gaming, restaurants and food services, and event sales and table reservations. With guest and hotel staff safety in mind, Infor Hospitality Cloud Solutions are designed to address hotel operational needs for social distancing and contactless processes – including mobile check-in/ increase of 8.5% from 2019. Healthcare was found to incur the highest per record cost of a data breach, followed by Financial Services and then Technology.
The study found that malicious attacks were the root cause for 59% of data breaches in KSA and UAE, followed by system glitches at 24% and human error at 17%. Data breaches which originated from a malicious attack were not only the most common root check-out, digital keys, and the ability to order room service via one’s own device. Specifically, Infor Hospitality Management Solution (HMS), Infor HMS Online Check In, Infor HMS Online Check Out, and Infor POS Order Now have been added to the Infor Hospitality Cloud Solution Suite to deliver convenience, clarity, and care with every stay. New to the suite, web-based tools empower guests to
cause of a breach, but also the most expensive, costing companies in KSA and UAE an average total cost per data breach of $6.86 million.
Sponsored by IBM Security and conducted by the Ponemon Institute, the 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Report is based on in-depth interviews with more than 3,200 security professional in organisations that suffered a data
INFOR INTRODUCES CONTACTLESS APPLICATIONS FOR HOSPITALITY
breach over the past year.
manage their check-in and check-out experiences according to preference — often en route and on their phones, allowing minimal contact with hotel staff. Accessible in real time, this tool helps hoteliers keep pace with the busy lives and schedules of the modern guest and helps deliver a tailored, seamless and contactless guest self-service check-in and checkout experience, delivering a welcoming experience every time. In addition, Infor’s restaurant technology (Infor Point of Sale) has been enhanced with the Self- Service Order Now solution to online food ordering. Guests can order food online on their smart device in the comfort of their hotel room or in a restaurant facility without having to interact with staff keeping socialdistancing norms. Lastly, Infor’s Table Reservations solutions allow establishments to book tables for diners and other resources requiring social distancing, such as gym space, bowling alleys and equipment.
FORTINET ACQUIRES OPAQ NETWORKS
RAQMIYAT TEAMS UP WITH AUTOMATION ANYWHERE
Raqmiyat, a system integrator and a provider of Digital Transformation solutions and services, is now a regional business partner and authorised reseller of Automation Anywhere. The collaboration will help Raqmiyat to strengthen its RPA capabilities across the GCC region by efficiently catering to the growing demand for automation.
“Enterprise adoption of automation is growing at a rapid pace. Together with Automation Anywhere, we anticipate helping customers increase the footprint for intelligent automation across the region to increase efficiency, optimise cost thereby increase ROI and improve your bottom line. In this Digital Age, investing in automation has become a necessity and a core strategy to grow and serve more customers,” said Melvin S. D’Souza, Vice President, Banking and Financial Services, Raqmiyat.
“Effective Digital Transformation is often a myth without Automation, an infrastructure might have various processes that are working in silos O PAQ’s Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) cloud solution protects organisations’ distributed networks – from data centres, to branch offices, to remote users, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO said, “The recent SASE market momentum further validates our Security-driven Networking approach and underscores what we’ve been saying for years. In this era of hyperconnectivity and expanding networks; with the network edge stretching across the entire digital infrastructure, networking and security must converge. In fact the acquisition of OPAQ actually further enhances our existing SASE offering enabling Fortinet to deliver the most complete SASE platform on the market. The Fortinet SASE platform delivers the broadest security and industry-leading SDWAN and networking offerings that can all be delivered to customers and partners through a flexible, cost efficient and patented zero-trust cloud architecture.”
and delivering output. AI infused Automation helps in increasing process efficiency by seamlessly connecting with the applications residing both on the front and back end of any operation. This will help the organisation scale much faster and derive effective ROI,” said Milan Sheth, EVP-IMEA, Automation Anywhere.
CITRIX, MICROSOFT PARTNER TO ACCELERATE THE FUTURE OF WORK
The workplace of the future will look a lot different than it did just a few months ago. The global pandemic has caused both employees and companies to rethink how and where work gets done. More organisations will make remote work a permanent part of their cost and workforce management strategies. They will also reexamine the structure and role of their office environments to keep employees safe and productive and enable greater agility across the enterprise.
To drive business continuity and growth, organisations will need to embrace more flexible work models that accommodate these new priorities. Citrix and Microsoft are joining forces to reimagine this new, flexible workplace. Employees need a consistent experience and seamless access to the applications and insights HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has inaugurated the Smart Cities Command and Control Centre of Moro Hub (Data Hub Integrated Solutions), a whollyowned subsidiary of DEWA. As a Dubai 10X enabler, Moro Hub’s new centre
vital to doing their best work wherever work needs to get done. To address this challenge, the technology leaders today announced they will partner to help organisations accelerate the move to the cloud and speed adoption of digital workspaces and virtual desktops.
The multi-year agreement builds upon and expands one of the industry’s longest strategic partnerships. Under provides services in Intelligent IoT Platforms, Cyber Security and Managed Services to support the Government and Enterprise customers in their digital transformation journey. Aligning with the government directives, Moro Hub’s edge Smart Cities Command and Control Centre enables government and enterprise clients to fast track the adoption of new-age digital technologies such as IoT, cybersecurity, cloud and more. The new centre will allow digital leaders to make well-informed decisions based on the terms of the deal, Microsoft will select Citrix Workspace as a preferred digital workspace solution, and Citrix will select Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud platform to move existing onpremises Citrix customers to Microsoft Azure and enable people to work anywhere across devices.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses around the world to change the way that employees work, while still meeting the speed and security requirements that today’s uncertain business environment demands. Looking forward, hybrid-work models will become the standard for many customers, requiring a flexible infrastructure to support, secure and empower their teams,” said David Henshall, President and CEO, Citrix. “Together, Citrix and Microsoft can deliver a powerful digital workspace in a trusted and secure public cloud where employees can access everything they need to engage and be productive whether they are at home,
in the office or on the road.” data-driven analysis.
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, said, “We work according to the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai the city of the future. We strive to achieve the objectives of the Dubai 10X initiative, which mandates the Government of Dubai to be a global leader that is 10 years ahead of all other cities through government innovation and the reformation of traditional work mechanisms.
Regional clients can now benefit from innovative solutions that provide smart cities, smart buildings, fire alarm monitoring, video surveillance, environmental monitoring, energy management, M&V (measurement & validation) and associated services leveraging on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics. Clients will also enjoy Moro Hub’s managed services and 24x7x365 aftersale support.
ORACLE DEBUTS CLOUD@CUSTOMER
Oracle has announced Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@ Customer, a fully-managed cloud region that brings all of the vendor’s second-generation cloud services, including Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud applications, to customer data centres, starting at only $500K a month.
With this offering, enterprises get the exact same complete set of modern cloud services, APIs, industry-leading SLAs, superior price-performance, and highest levels of security available from Oracle’s public cloud regions in their own data centres. This is ideal for highly regulated or securityfocused businesses needing to meet AVEVA has announced the launch of the AVEVA Insight OMI app. According to the firm, the app is a first in the industry to infuse real-time artificial intelligence into an operator’s decisionmaking as well as improve overall operational agility.
The smart app provides industrial businesses with an accelerated path toward implementing artificial intelligence in the control room or on the plant floor, presenting real-time anomaly detection in a context-aware OMI visualization display. It will benefit operators, engineers, and operations managers from various industries including Water and Wastewater, Energy, Food & Beverage among others.
The AVEVA Insight OMI app introduces AI capabilities into the
AVEVA System Platform, formerly Wonderware, and leverages predictive early warning and automatic detection of unusual operational behaviour. This provides users with early notification so demanding latency and data residency advantage of the pay-as-you-go requirements, reduce operational economics, scale, and agility of cloud costs, and modernise legacy computing. However, most enterprises applications. expect to continue to run a portion of
Over the past few years, enterprise their workloads in on-premises data adoption of public clouds has gone centres for the foreseeable future. This mainstream as companies took has resulted in strong demand from
customers for a hybrid architecture where the same services, same functionality, and easy portability of applications exists between their public and on-premises cloud environments. But until today, Oracle sys no solution was able to bridge the gap between cloud and on-premises environments. Onpremises offerings from other cloud providers offer a very small subset of the services available in their public cloud regions. With today’s announcement, Oracle is making all of its cloud services — more than 50 services — available on-premises so enterprises can use Oracle’s cloud services wherever they need them – in the cloud
AVEVA LAUNCHES SMART APP WITH EMBEDDED AI
or on-premises via Cloud@Customer.
they can quickly resolve issues before they become critical business problems such as unplanned downtime and production losses.
“IIoT applications have driven a massive increase in the collection of real-time operations and manufacturing data. As a result, operators face alarm overload and often cannot effectively react to or distinguish between process-critical situations and false positive alarm conditions, resulting in the loss of operational time and resources. By harnessing the power of AI and advanced cloud analytics, AVEVA is enabling operators to take proactive action, before process and maintenance problems occur,” said Rashesh Mody, Vice President, Monitoring and Control, AVEVA.
AVAYA EMPOWERS WORKFORCE WITH DEVICES AVAILABLE VIA SUBSCRIPTION
Avaya has announced the expansion of its Device as a Service offering into the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and eleven more new markets. This offering enables businesses to acquire Avaya’s latest business communication devices with the flexibility of a monthly subscription rather than an upfront purchase.
The expansion of this offering comes during a time of increased demand for flexible payment programs to help customers manage costs and future-proof their investments. Avaya reported 200 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in subscription based services in its latest earnings report. With endpoint protection becoming a top priority for businesses, especially in the new normal with increased remote work models in place, Help AG, the cybersecurity arm of Etisalat
“The success of the Avaya Subscription program is the result of customers accelerating their digital transformation activities – including establishing a new ‘all weather workforce’ that can work securely from anywhere and adding technologies that enable them to better serve customers,” said Steve Brock, Director, Avaya Subscription Marketing, Avaya. “They want the latest software and support at a price point that lets them more forward immediately, so that they can innovate when they have needs, with additional financial options.”
Avaya’s Device as a Service offering complements the Avaya Subscription program –
HELP AG, CROWDSTRIKE TEAM UP TO ADVANCE ENDPOINT PROTECTION
equipping customers with the Digital, has announced its partnership with CrowdStrike, a global clouddelivered endpoint protection provider. As a member of the CrowdStrike Elevate Partner Program, Help AG will devices required to maximise the potential of this software, and enabling customers to purchase them in the same flexible, predictable manner.
offer CrowdStrike Falcon platform for comprehensive, real-time endpoint protection to businesses in the Middle East, with an initial focus on organisations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In recent months, the uptake of cloud-based technologies has been accelerated in the region, owing to the urgent need for the rapid, remote deployment of advanced IT solutions as businesses strive to maintain continuity by enhancing their digital footprint and services. Highlighting the region’s growing acceptance and appetite for cloud-delivered services, Gartner estimates that public cloud services revenue in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will total nearly $3 billion this year. “This partnership with CrowdStrike aligns with Help AG’s cloud-first strategy and offers our customers near-instant access to one of the industry’s highest-rated endpoint detection and response solutions with no upfront CapEx,” said Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG.
MIMECAST BUYS ETORCH
Mimecast has acquired eTorch, (trading as MessageControl), a messaging security provider with solutions designed to help stop social engineering and human identity attacks with the use of machine learning technology. The acquisition of
MessageControl strengthens
Mimecast’s Email Security 3.0 strategy that is designed to improve cybersecurity at the email perimeter, inside the organisation and beyond the perimeter. The powerful combination of Mimecast and MessageControl is engineered to provide customers using sensitive and confidential data, while productivity apps, such as Microsoft also serving as an additional sensor 365, even stronger protection against to further enrich Mimecast’s threat advanced phishing and impersonation intelligence. attacks. Additionally, it is designed “The first half of 2020 has been to prevent the inadvertent loss of unlike anything we’ve experienced
F5 ANNOUNCES FIRST MIDDLE EAST-BASED POINT OF PRESENCE
F5 Networks has announced the launch of a new Silverline Cloud Platform Point of Presence (PoP) in Bahrain.
The move is part a global expansion strategy to help customers better adapt to rapidly evolving threat imperatives and a new diversity of cloud consumption opportunities.
Silverline enables the deployment of security services for every app – regardless of location – without upfront investments in IT infrastructure and support.
The new PoP will provide improved application performance and reduced latency for Silverline Managed Services customers in the Middle East, Africa, and adjacent regions. It encompasses F5’s Silverline Web Application Firewall (WAF), Silverline DDoS Protection, Silverline Shape Defense and Silverline Threat Intelligence offerings.
Bahrain is F5’s third Silverline PoP serving the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, with the others located in the UK and Germany. F5 currently operates 12 other Silverline PoPs worldwide.
“The Bahrain PoP significantly enhances our ability to provide high-value managed security services that optimise and secure applications wherever they reside. It is also an acknowledgement of the Middle East’s continued and growing leadership in the cloud computing space,” said Mohammed Abukhater, F5’s RVP for Middle East and Africa. before. It’s becoming increasingly clear that better innovation is required to protect against the latest weaponized and unweaponized attacks,” said Peter Bauer, Chief Executive Officer at Mimecast. “MessageControl is a natural complement to Mimecast’s suite of cyber resilience solutions – from email and web security through brand protection, security awareness training, and data protection. Its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities will offer additional layers of defense by evolving and ‘learning’ the customer environment and user behaviors over time. We believe this acquisition allows Mimecast to continue to evolve our Email Security 3.0 strategy and provide the best protection for productivity cloud applications like Microsoft 365.”
HEALTHY OUTCOMES
RAFIK HARIRI UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL DELIVERS OUTSTANDING HEALTHCARE WITH A MODERN DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS AND COLLABORATIONS SYSTEM FROM MITEL.
Lebanon-based Rafik Hariri University Hospital specialises in hospitalisation and medical services by ensuring care in an academic frame. The hospital offers academic training to young doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and dietitians through affiliations with several universities.
Even before the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital was already on a digital-first trajectory, having deployed upgraded state-ofthe-art data centres featuring latest servers and storage; and had installed advanced PACS Systems. It is also served by a fully automated medical information system and electronic patient health record. The hospital additionally provides remote medical services through telemedicine offerings.
Abbass Bassam, IT Manager,
Rafik Hariri University Hospital, said,
“The pandemic further pushed us to continue our digital endeavour and implement innovative virtual solutions for the safety of our patients and employees.”
Rising to the challenge
The emergence of the pandemic has led to unprecedented challenges across all segments of society. It has been especially demanding for healthcare institutes and providers. In addition to patient care, it poses unique challenges to the clinical clerkship model, where resident doctors attend rounds with an attending physician on a daily basis.
“However,” Bassam said, “with the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic, it became a safety hazard to have groups of people gathered around in close quarters. As a teaching hospital, we had to urgently find a solution to address this issue so as to not cause disruption to the clerkship learning environment for students.”
Besides this, the hospital was increasingly finding it difficult to stay in touch with staff using its existing outdated pager systems. Often, the paging devices would break down, or messages would be lost in transit, paving the way for miscommunications and errors, which could prove to be fatal in the healthcare space.
“The creation of a platform for doctors, nurses, and clerks to communicate quickly and efficiently is very important. Every second matter in a life-saving situation,” said Bassam.
As the IT Manager, Bassam and his team decided to double down on their digital efforts and move to an advanced and modern communications system.
Going digital
Having already experienced the unparalleled expertise of Mitel in previous projects, Rafik Hariri University Hospital selected the vendor’s mobile-first unified communications and collaboration solution – MiCollab. Designed for today’s fast-paced, mobile workplace, the solution was perfectly in line with what the hospital was looking for, according to Bassam.
By choosing MiCollab, Rafik Hariri enabled its employees to connect, communicate and collaborate across any environment, quickening decisionmaking processes among other benefits.
RAFIK HARIRI’S DIGITISED INFRASTRUCTURE
• Upgraded datacenters with new storage and new servers • Thermal Cameras at the entrance gates of the hospital were installed to measure people temperatures quickly and without any inconveniences • Installed Facial Recognition system to allow employees to check-in and check-out without touching the machines • Reduced the number of physical meetings with the use of online meeting applications • Developed a tracking system to keep track of PCR tests results and a database of tested people • Designed a Passport Reader to make registration faster for PCR tests. • Deployed Cloud AI system that uses AI to analyse a larger number
CTs with fewer physicians
The advanced enterprise communications solution offers a single application for voice, video, messaging, presence, audio conferencing, mobility, and team collaboration. This allows for consistent and seamless conversations across devices and environments.
“While we had greatly progressed in terms of our digital objectives, the COVID-19 pandemic made us further realise the importance of being able to communicate and collaborate effortlessly on digital platforms,” explained Bassam.
Results
“Thanks to Mitel’s MiCollab solution, we now have a lot more visibility on the whereabouts of our resident doctors and nurses,” he said.
DIGITAL SERVICES FOR PATIENTS
Installed Wi-Fi in patients’ room to make them feel more comfortable and connected Installed Mobile app for patients to get lab tests results as well as X-Ray reports Introduced Monitoring room that allows doctors to see everything they need in isolations rooms without going in Introduced Wireless telemetry for taking vital signs for patients and send data automatically to the main system Introduced Robots that can deliver food trays or other items into isolation rooms. Enabled attending doctors with IPAD on a stand for communication and collaboration
KEY MICOLLAB COLLABORATION FEATURES
Single, unified experience Connects unified communication with team collaboration Mobile-first design Real-time voice and video calling Audio conferencing with web sharing Single number reach Persistent collaborative workspaces Individual and group chat Outlook integration Secure remote working
The MiCollab solution also allowed the attending physician to evaluate and educate resident doctors on a patient’s case remotely through a video conferencing app on the iPad. This way, the hospital was able to restrict the interaction between resident doctors and patients, ensuring a safe environment.
“We are also in the process of implementing Microsoft’s mixed reality smart glasses HoloLens to enhance this environment further and add more value to the teaching process,” said Bassam.
The hospital also upgraded its telephones to Mitel’s latest digital and IP phones.
“We could now connect with all staff through a mobile app, even if they were outside the hospital premises,” Bassam said. “And what’s more – we also have considerably reduced our telephone invoices by around 70%, which otherwise used to amount to huge figures calling out-stationed residents.” Rafik Hariri University Hospital has undergone a massive transformation not just with its communication system but its whole IT infrastructure in the past six months. With innovation at the heart of its transformation, Rafik Hariri has always been ahead of the curve in digital solutions within the country. It was one of the first hospitals in Lebanon to install thermal cameras at its entrance gates to monitor temperatures of anyone entering its premises without any hassle.
“COVID-19 forced us to make decisions very quickly to ensure everyone’s safety,” said Bassam. “We also installed a facial recognition system to allow employees to check-in and checkout without touching any machines. Previously, we were using a fingerprint system. In light of the pandemic, we had to innovate. We also introduced a separate mobile app that uses Google Maps to help with employee check-in and checkout of the premises.”
The hospital has also introduced a monitoring room that allows doctors to see everything they need in isolation rooms without going in.
The hospital also revolutionised its IT systems keeping patients as a priority. It upgraded its Wi-Fi to faster speeds in in-patients’ rooms to make sure they are comfortable and connected.
“We also created a smart app, which made it easy and quick for patients to receive their lab, blood work and other results. We introduced wireless telemetry for assessing patients’ vital signs periodically and having the data automatically sent to the main system. We even have robots to deliver food to patients, limiting human interactions to control the spread of the pandemic. This is an area which we will continue to work on and enhance.
“All of this is still only a fragment of what we actually achieved in the past few months. We have also deployed a cloud and AI system that uses AI to analyse a larger number of CTs with fewer physicians, where you upload CTs that automatically detect the existence of COVID-19 within two minutes. We have created a tracking system for PCR test results and introduced a passport reader to make registrations faster for COVID-19 patients,” said Bassam.
He also reiterated the importance of staying updated and regularly upgrading to the latest technologies. With no plans to rest on its laurels, the IT manager said the next item for Rafik Hariri on its digital agenda is to create an application for COVID-19 contact tracing and further develop the potential with Microsoft’s HoloLens.
