CXO Insight Middle East - A Holistic Approach

ISSUE 31 \ MAY 2021

A HOLISTIC APPROACH How Sophos is tackling the challenges of cybersecurity with a comprehensive ecosystem

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CONTENTS

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PRODUCTS

HOW SOPHOS IS TACKLING THE CHALLENGES OF CYBERSECURITY WITH A COMPREHENSIVE ECOSYSTEM

A HOLISTIC APPROACH

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INTELLIGENT AN AGENDA 29 12 WHY AUTOMATION IS IMPORTANT FOR RESILIENCE FOR MAKING SENSE OF 30 18 READY PRIME TIME THREAT REPORTS HAPING THE FUTURE OF 22 SCOMMUNICATIONS

TO BRING IN THE 34 TIME THREAT HUNTERS

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DEFENDING YOUR BUSINESS FROM CYBER THREATS

NEW WAY 24 THE OF WORKING

PUBLISHED BY INSIGHT MEDIA & PUBLISHING LLC

A RECIPE FOR GROWTH

GETTING STARTED WITH 39 INTELLIGENT AUTOMATIONS

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NEWS

ARTHUR D. LITTLE REPORT DETAILS WHY THE MIDDLE EAST MUST PURSUE 5G ORACLE ENABLES ADVANCED FOOTBALL ANALYTICS FOR PREMIER LEAGUE IBM UNVEILS NANOMETER CHIP TECHNOLOGY

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EDITORIAL

GET READY FOR BLOCKCHAIN

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lockchain is one of the most talkedabout technologies today. Many blockchain PoCs are expected to move into production this year, and Gartner says CIOs must embrace this distributed ledger technology to explore strategic business opportunities. Blockchain is a disruptive technology and it is important for CIOs to understand how it works and its impact on their organisations’ business models.

Although blockchain is still in a nascent stage, the technology is rapidly evolving with many use cases across verticals. For example, in the supply chain industry, blockchain is being used for product tracking and tracing. Some governments are already using this technology in elections to prevent fraud, and it has many applications and uses in healthcare as well. The industry is leveraging blockchain-enabled technologies for tracking and monitoring Covid-19 vaccines. A couple of months ago, Abu Dhabi Ports launched a blockchain-based system to ensure the efficient distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

Another industry where blockchain is already well-entrenched is the financial services sector,

which is using it for cross-border payments, trade finance, etc. Industry pundits expect the technology to find mainstream adoption by 2023, but CIOs will have to start exploring the possibilities now. One of the factors that stunt the growth of blockchain is cost and complexity.

However, now many big tech vendors such as IBM, Oracle, and AWS offer blockchain as a service via the cloud, which will help many enterprises test the waters without major upfront investments.

This edition features tips and advice from the industry pros on what CIOs should know about blockchain and some of the top applications in 2021. We also have a feature on another buzzword in the industry today – digital workplaces. Many of us are still working remotely primarily, and in the post-pandemic world, the future of work will be a hybrid one. In this new normal, creating a great employee experience is going to be a strategic business objective, and we have detailed some critical digital workplace trends that CIOs must pay attention to.

I hope you enjoy reading it.

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NEWS

ARTHUR D. LITTLE REPORT DETAILS WHY THE MIDDLE EAST MUST PURSUE 5G

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ities face many challenges stemming from societal and technological changes, with population growth, urbanisation, infrastructure provision, cybercrime, and environmental pollution driving the increasing necessity for new digital use cases.

Looking ahead, projects based on 5G, the next generation of mobile network technology, will help overcome these challenges and enhance economic development across industries. Arthur D. Little (ADL), the management consultancy firm with the longeststanding presence in the Middle East, expound this viewpoint in their latest report entitled “Is your city ready to go digital? How 5G use cases will unleash your city’s full potential.” The report details how 5G is fundamentally changing the way by which cities

can shape urban life for citizens and improve ecosystems for corporations, providing strategic insights and a comprehensive explanation of why cities must pursue the technology.

ADL highlights that 5G implementation frameworks must address two main points. Firstly, cities must decide which 5G use cases are of strategic importance to them and whether they should be provided by the city itself. Secondly, cities must overcome 5G infrastructural challenges by building infrastructure or

supporting telecom operators’ efforts to carry out the same mandate. Should these areas not be addressed, people and businesses may view relocation as the answer to declines in competitiveness and quality of life caused by insufficient technological infrastructure coverage in their city. However, new applications based on 5G can make valuable contributions in tackling the challenges above, ultimately preventing residents and organisations from seeking opportunities elsewhere.

coverage, and across the Premier League’s social channels, starting with the 2021/22 season. Machine learning models will be developed to generate immediate results based on live data streams, real-time tracking data, and facts collected on each of the League’s players and from

thousands of previous matches.

Research shows that fans are interested in the integration of match data and analysis, and these insights will help tell more stories about Premier League matches, providing fans a data-rich experience. Fans will be able to access a range of match information instantly, whether they are watching from home or checking scores on their mobile devices.

Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Masters, said, “We are always looking at new ways to bring the Premier League to life and enhance the analysis of the competition. Oracle is a global brand with a great track record of driving innovation, and we look forward to working together to bring new levels of engagement to fans around the world.”

ORACLE ENABLES ADVANCED FOOTBALL ANALYTICS FOR PREMIER LEAGUE The Premier League has chosen Oracle as its official cloud provider. In teaming with Oracle, the Premier League will provide a deeper understanding of the live action on the pitch through new in-match statistics. Oracle’s data and analytics and machine learning technologies will deliver these statistics in real-time to a global audience of billions each season.

“Match Insights – Powered by Oracle Cloud” will present advanced player performance data and statistics during global broadcast 6

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IBM UNVEILS NANOMETER CHIP TECHNOLOGY

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BM has unveiled a breakthrough in semiconductor design and process with the development of the world’s first chip announced with 2 nanometer (nm) nanosheet technology. Semiconductors play critical roles in everything from computing, to appliances, to communication devices, transportation systems, and critical infrastructure.

Demand for increased chip performance and energy efficiency continues to rise, especially in the era of hybrid cloud, AI, and the Internet of Things. IBM’s new 2 nm chip technology helps advance the state-of-the-art in the semiconductor industry, addressing this growing demand. It is projected to achieve 45 percent higher performance, or 75 percent lower energy use, than today’s most advanced 7 nm node chips.

According to the company, the potential benefits of these advanced 2 nm chips could include: • Quadrupling cell phone battery life, only requiring users to charge their

devices every four days.

• Slashing the carbon footprint of data centers, which account for one percent of global energy use.

Changing all of their servers to 2 nmbased processors could potentially reduce that number significantly.

• Drastically speeding up a laptop’s functions, ranging from quicker processing in applications, to assisting in language translation more easily, to faster internet access.

• Contributing to faster object detection and reaction time in

“The IBM innovation reflected in this new 2 nm chip is essential to the entire semiconductor and IT industry,” said Darío Gil, SVP and Director of IBM Research. “It is the product of IBM’s approach of taking on hard tech challenges and a demonstration of how breakthroughs can result from sustained investments and a collaborative R&D ecosystem approach.”

convert customer relationships to deliver personalised experiences across every channel. The combined offering will make it easier for marketers to deploy and measure

campaigns and automate workflows across the entire customer journey – a game-changer for the majority of brands not yet set up for life cycle marketing.

Steve Tzikakis, CEO, Sitecore, said, “At Sitecore, we believe that this environment is actually an opportunity for enterprise customers to make once-in-a-generation leaps forward in terms of human connection, customer acquisition and brand loyalty. That’s why Sitecore is building the industry’s first fully integrated, end-to-end SaaS-based digital experience platform — to facilitate both the modern art and science of earning customer relationships through experience to make consenting to data-sharing an afterthought.”

SITECORE BUYS MOOSEND Sitecore has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Moosend, a marketing automation and campaign management platform.

The acquisition, which is part of Sitecore’s ambitious ongoing $1.2 billion growth plan, is expected to close by the end of May of 2021.

Moosend perfectly complements Sitecore’s industry-leading core offering to create a personalisation powerhouse for modern enterprises.

Moosend’s state-of-the-art marketing automation and AIpowered customer engagement features will streamline Sitecore’s ability to engage, nurture, and

autonomous vehicles like selfdriving cars.

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NEWS

SOPHOS ANNOUNCES XDR SOLUTION WITH NEW EDR CAPABILITIES

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ophos has announced Sophos XDR, an extended detection and response (XDR) solution that synchronises native endpoint, server, firewall, and email security. With this comprehensive and integrated approach, Sophos XDR provides a

holistic view of an organisation’s environment with the richest data set and deep analysis for threat detection, investigation and response.

Sophos XDR extends visibility across Sophos’ next-generation portfolio of solutions for an in-depth picture of threats. At the heart of Sophos XDR is the industry’s richest data set. The solution offers two types of data retention, including up to 90 days of on-device data, plus 30 days of cross-product data in the cloud-based data lake. The unique approach of blending on-device and data lake forensics provides the broadest and most in-depth contextualised insights that can be leveraged by security analysts

EXPO 2020 TO DEPLOY CISCO WI-FI

Expo 2020 Dubai is deploying Cisco’s Wi-Fi technology – ensuring fast and secure wireless connections throughout the 4.38 square kilometer site.

Expo 2020 Dubai, the first World Expo to be hosted in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region, expected to welcome thousands of 8

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visitors per day once fully operational from 1 October 2021. It is estimated that the majority of these visitors will be connecting to Cisco’s Wi-Fi network at any given time.

With Expo 2020 Dubai seeking to deliver unique and engaging experiences, Cisco’s Wi-Fi technology will prove

through Sophos Central and via open application programming interfaces (APIs) for ingestion into security information and event management (SIEM); security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR); professional service automation (PSA); and remote monitoring and management (RMM) systems.

The data lake hosts critical information from Intercept X, Intercept X for Server, Sophos Firewall, and Sophos Email.Sophos Cloud Optix and Sophos Mobile will also feed into the data repository later this year.

Security and IT teams can easily access this data to run cross-product threat hunts and investigations, and to quickly drill into granular details of past and present attacker activity.

The availability of offline access to historical data further protects against lost or impacted devices.

critical to keeping visitors at the heart of the action and connected with each other and their surroundings. Cisco’s Wi-Fi network will enable the visitor to connect effortlessly to a rich variety of technology services that will enhance the visitor experience, including engaging AR and VR content as well as application and location services and barcode and QR code scanning. The network will also facilitate fast upload and download speeds so that every visitor can become an ambassador of Expo – sharing their experience with the world through realtime audio-visual content.

Mohammed Alhashmi, Chief Technology Officer at Expo 2020 Dubai, said, “Expo 2020 will showcase breakthrough ideas, innovations and technologies that are shaping the future of our planet. As we prepare to welcome millions of visitors, we are working closely with strategic partners such as Cisco to ensure that Expo 2020 will be one of the smartest, fastest and most connected places on earth, ensuring an exceptional experience for visitors and continuing to provide world-class digital connectivity when Expo transitions into District 2020 – a model for future smart cities.”

SMARTCROWD DEBUTS REAL ESTATE CROWDFUNDING ON TEZOS BLOCKCHAIN

martCrowd Holding, parent group of the DFSA-regulated property investment and technology platform SmartCrowd Limited, has signed a deal for leveraging the open-source Tezos blockchain platform in MENA. SmartCrowd will empower people to

crowdfund investment in real estate using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies via the Tezos network.

SmartCrowd CEO and Co-Founder Siddiq Farid, said, “As a fully licensed and regulated business, it is essential that we use technology that enhances trust, transparency, and efficiency.

By using the Tezos blockchain, we are empowering our investors and providing an even better service that aligns with our core values.

This announcement underlines our commitment to pioneer the way people invest in real estate using the very best technology.”

The agreement will offer three main benefits for SmartCrowd investors. First, it will provide greater transparency for investors as Tezos enables smart contracts on a decentralised blockchain ledger. Second, fast and secure transactions on the Tezos network will increase the speed at which transactions are executed, providing investors with a frictionless buying and selling experience and ensuring that each transaction is reflected instantaneously on the SmartCrowd dashboard. Finally, the technology will give SmartCrowd investors more options for liquidity by lowering minimum investment thresholds. This will provide SmartCrowd customers with the most inclusive, efficient and effective service.

VMWARE ANNOUNCES ZERO CARBON COMMITTED INITIATIVE

partners Atea and OVHcloud as well as Equinix, IBM, Microsoft and OVHcloud US have joined the initiative.

“It’s crucial we make significant progress on climate action as soon as possible, so it’s encouraging to see more and more companies, including VMware customers and partners, as well as countries committing to reach net zero carbon,” said Joe Baguley, VP & CTO EMEA, VMware. “This initiative builds on VMware’s history of helping customers reduce their environmental impact through the more efficient use of IT infrastructure, and will make it easier for our customers and partners to accelerate their transition to a lowcarbon economy.”

VMware as a longstanding commitment to sustainability. The company achieved carbon neutrality and is committed achieve net zero carbon emissions for its operations and supply chain by

2030. This target is part of VMware’s 2030 Agenda, which outlines its 10-year commitment to create a more equitable, sustainable and resilient world. A key component is “Intrinsic Sustainability” innovation to help its customers, through VMware’s virtualization and cloud solutions and partnerships, meet their sustainability goals by reducing the carbon emissions associated with their data center operations.

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VMware has announced the launch of the VMware Zero Carbon Committed cloud partner initiative. The goal is to catalyse the transition to zero-carbon clouds and help its customers reach their sustainability and decarbonisation targets by connecting them with cloud providers that have aligned goals.

Participating VMware Cloud Verified providers must operate infrastructure-, energy- and carbon-efficient data centers based on VMware software defined data center (SDDC) technologies and be committed to powering those data centers with renewable energy sources by 2030. European-based

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NEWS

AVEVA, MAIRE TECNIMONT COLLABORATE TO ACCELERATE INDUSTRIAL DX

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VEVA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor Tecnimont, a subsidiary of the Maire Tecnimont Group, to create new digital predictive and prescriptive maintenance services that drive enhanced business outcomes.

This partnership will extend usage of AVEVA’s Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions across the Maire Tecnimont Group, globally, enhancing plant operability and lowering maintenance costs. This will in turn deliver increased information availability empowering better, more informed decision-making, and ultimately improving overall business performance.

As part of the agreement, the two

companies will work together over a twelve-month period on a defined number of customer projects to promote the application of predictive maintenance technology for critical plant assets.

“Digital transformation is one of the technology drivers most needed to give our industry a much-needed boost.

This MoU with AVEVA aligns seamlessly with Maire Tecnimont’s strategy for digital transformation: it complements our value proposition which focuses on NextPlant, our new digital services and solutions portfolio that has been designed to fully meet customer’s needs, while simultaneously improving our operational model through the creation of digital enablers,” said Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO Maire Tecnimont Group Kim Custeau, Vice President, Asset

HELP AG: DDOS AND RANSOMWARE ATTACKS HIT RECORD LEVELS IN ME

The cybersecurity arm of Etisalat Digital, Help AG’s State of the Market Report 2021 revealed that over ten million Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks were recorded globally in 2020, including a 183% increase in the UAE alone, while 10

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ransomware attacks are on the rise, with the government, private, oil and gas, telecom and healthcare sectors particularly affected.

The first of its kind to focus exclusively on digital security in the Middle East region, Help AG’s

Performance Management, AVEVA, said, “AVEVA’s Asset Performance Management suite is well positioned to advance industrial operations of the future. By enabling companies to predict failures before they occur, we are helping to reduce unplanned downtime as well as drive efficiency and safety throughout plant operations.

We are excited about the partnership with Maire Tecnimont and look forward to supporting our joint customers in overcoming today’s industrial challenges by leveraging human experience with artificial intelligence.”

State of the Market Report 2021 delivers cybersecurity intelligence across a range of parameters, including the top threats over the course of 2020, the region’s biggest vulnerabilities, the kinds of attacks and attack vectors which are a cause for concern, the anatomy of some high-profile breaches, security investment patterns of organisations in the region, and where the market is headed in terms of technologies and evolution.

“Public and private sectors across the world are facing unprecedented levels of digital threats which are only increasing year-on-year,” said Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG. “Help AG’s State of the Market Report was created to be the ultimate guidebook for cybersecurity in the Middle East.

Through the report, Help AG seeks to work closely with our clients and our partners to spread awareness and stay ahead of emerging threats, thus elevating cybersecurity for the entire region.”

of the segments experienced flat growth, except for communications services which grew 7.2% last year.

This year, enterprise software will experience the highest growth at

14.5%. The increase in number of remote workers will be the catalyst to this growth. Growth will also return to segments such as data center systems and devices over the next two years.

IT spending in MENA will return to pre-pandemic levels and even surpass it over the next two years.

“Different economies have reacted differently to the pandemic. Rapid digitalisation of MENA, especially the gulf countries, began before the pandemic. While 2020 slowed the growth of IT in the region, the ‘K-shaped’ recovery has begun faster in this region, as compared to Asia and Latin America,” said Lovelock.

CIOs in MENA will increase their spending on servers, applications and infrastructure software in 2021, to support the rapid digitalization efforts.

Additionally, the increase in remote workforce will increase spending on mobile devices and remote working technologies such as desktop-as-aservice (DaaS).

being developed to protect data in a quantum world. The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently selecting finalists amongst the quantum safe encryption algorithms being developed. In anticipation of this, the collaboration between Thales and Senetas supports the current finalists (including Thales’ Falcon algorithm), enabling an easy transition to the winning formula expected to be chosen by NIST in 2022. The solution also supports the latest European Telecommunication Standards Institute standards for how quantum keys are created, protected and distributed – an important and emerging security capability that has application usage in 5G networks.

Enabling customers to combine both conventional and quantum resistant encryption in a single network security platform, the solution also provides long-term

data protection in a quantum world.

Hackers harvesting encrypted data today, will come unstuck when attempting to break data with supercomputing power in the future.

The adoption of the new standards will protect any critical data and continue to render the data useless without the correct key.

GARTNER: IT SPENDING IN MENA TO SOAR TO $171 BILLION IN 2021

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T spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is projected to total $171 billion in 2021, an increase of 4.5% from 2020, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.

“IT projects were either put on hold or canceled in MENA because of COVID-19. In 2021, as the situation in the region improves and businesses understand the true value of a resilient digital ecosystem, IT spending will return to a pre-pandemic growth rate,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “In the first quarter of 2021 projects such as ‘remote work visas’, ‘Smart Dubai 2021’, and other economic policy regulations were launched. These are expected to boost technology investments in the region.”

In 2020, IT spending in MENA grew 2.7%, as compared to 2020. Most

SENETAS, THALES UNVEIL QUANTUM RESISTANT NETWORK ENCRYPTION SOLUTION Thales and Senetas have collaborated to launch the world’s first quantum resistant network encryption solution, capable of protecting customer data (at speeds up to 100 Gbps) against future quantum attacks. Regarded as among the most significant threat to cybersecurity, quantum-computing looks set to render many of today’s security methods, such as encryption, obsolete.

With estimates that a working quantum computer outside a lab environment will be a reality within the next five to 10 years, minimum security requirement standards are

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VIEWPOINT

WHY INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION IS IMPORTANT

processes breakdown when scripts fail and these are affected by infrastructure, software, data, and so on.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND POST-PANDEMIC CHALLENGES ARE MOVING AUTOMATION INTO THE CORE OF THE ENTERPRISE, PAVING THE ARRIVAL OF INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION AND HIGHLIGHTING ENDLESS TECHNOLOGICAL POSSIBILITIES, DETAILS VISHAL MANCHANDA, REGIONAL MANAGER, PROVEN CONSULT.

Culture Intelligent automation is an enterprisewide solution and also need to be managed by change management, use cases, security practices. While intelligent automation is an initiative, building an automation culture is important in the longer term. Since automation impacts people, they can either resist or become a strength.

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raditional software development builds code to capture best practices and embodies them into the back office of enterprise applications. Robotic process automation captures the keystrokes of the workforce on the front end of applications, as they work and deliver, and in that sense automates them into software robots or bots.

As building a software robot using RPA tools is relatively quick, adoption of RPA and delivering the first set of robots for any organisation has been relatively easy. RPA as a technology is robust enough to handle complex process automations and scaleup quickly, but it is when we need to solve complex problems that requires mimicking human brain is where we hit a roadblock with RPA. Arrival of intelligent automation Till now, RPA has unleashed a digital workforce of software robots that has worked and delivered on the periphery of much wider enterprise initiatives such as digital transformation. But in order to move forward, RPA will now need much deeper and better integration with subjects such as machine learning and computer vision.

This is leading to an evolved form of automation, with RPA at its core, termed as intelligent automation.

The rapid post pandemic acceleration of digital transformation initiatives has also highlighted the need to bring intelligent automation into the folds of the enterprise-wide transformation, versus its previous peripheral and sideline 12

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approach. The post pandemic pressure on organisational performance and efficiency has meant that automation is now increasingly moving into the core of post pandemic digital transformation.

Learning points Some of the learning points from the usage of intelligent automation: Process According to Forester in its report Ten Golden Rules for RPA Success, May 2020, more than half of all global RPA programs use less than 10 bots.

According to Forester, less than 19% of RPA installations have reached an advanced stage of maturity. Some of the setbacks that have stalled programs include fragmented initiatives, multiple vendors and incomplete governance.

Technology Using RPA, business users can introduce automation across workflows and automations. But often this includes scripting and the more complex the process the more scripting that is required. Bots or automated

Next level of automation For any type of automation, it may be necessary to look at the entire process to plan for straight through automation.

Process mining can help to streamline and automate the process faster. While digital work assistants can be used for simple processes, for more complex processes it may be required to use task analytics, design thinking, journey visioning. This helps to map user behavior, motivations, dependencies.

Once completed, the organisation can have a much better view of short- and long-term automation opportunities.

Future success As an organisation blends humans, bots and machine learning into processes, the benefits and gains and further opportunities will keep growing, However, in order to be successful, it is also important to build a culture that recognises and prioritises automation.

For example, intelligent automation could automate that uses machine language to handle exceptions needs humans to train the algorithms, validate results, and manage process exceptions. Automating processes gives an organisation to rethink the legacy of its processes and refocus on customers and employees.

Prioritising automation does not mean that employees and humans are not centerpiece for the organisation. There are huge benefits that humans can gain by skillfully blending automation into the digital enterprises and training data and blending machine learning into processes.

VIEWPOINT

MODERN BANK HEISTS TOM KELLERMANN, HEAD OF CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY, VMWARE SECURITY BUSINESS UNIT, DELVES INTO THE FINDINGS OF THE MODERN BANK HEISTS REPORT COMMISSIONED BY VMWARE.

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he modern bank heist has escalated to a hostage situation over the past year.

The new goal of attackers is now to hijack a financial institution’s digital infrastructure and to leverage that infrastructure against a bank’s constituents. As the world shifted to an anywhere workforce amid the pandemic, we witnessed attacker strategy evolve, becoming much more destructive and sophisticated than ever before.

In the fourth annual Modern Bank Heists report, we interviewed 126 CISOs, representing some of the world’s largest financial institutions, regarding their experiences with cybercrime campaigns.

Given the nature of its business, the financial sector has established robust security postures and fraud prevention practices. However, they are facing an onslaught of sophisticated cybercrime conspiracies. Attacks against financial institutions more than tripled last year.

This stark reality can be attributed to the organised nature of cybercrime cartels and the dramatic increase in sophisticated cyberattacks. The goal of this year’s report was to understand how offense should inform the financial sector’s defense.

Here’s an overview of some key findings: • From heist to hostage: 38% of financial institutions experienced an increase in island hopping, escalating

a heist to a hostage situation.

Cybercrime cartels understand the interdependencies of the sector and recognise that they can hijack the digital transformation of the financial institution to attack their customers.

They use brand trust (often times trust that’s been built up over hundreds of years) against the bank’s constituents by commandeering its assets.

• Increased geopolitical tension and counter IR triggering destructive attacks: There’s been a 118% increase in destructive attacks as we see geopolitical tension play out in cyberspace. Russia, China and the U.S. underground posed the greatest concern to financial institutions. It is also worth noting that cybercriminals in the financial sector will typically only leverage destructive attacks as an escalation to burn the evidence as part of a counter incident response.

• The digitisation of insider trading: 51% of financial institutions experienced attacks targeting market strategies.

This allows for the digitisation of insider trading and ability to frontrun the market, which aligns with the strategies of economic espionage.

• Cybercriminals launch Chronos attacks: 41% of financial institutions observed the manipulation of time stamps. This is occurring within a sector that’s incredibly dependent on time given the nature of its business.

Because there’s no way to insulate the integrity of time once deployed in a time stamp fashion, this Chronos attack is quite pernicious.

As the threat landscape evolves, so will the tactics, techniques and procedures of cybercrime cartels, as seen in the above findings.

These groups have become national

assets for the nation-states who offer them protection and power. In tandem with this, we’ve seen traditional crime groups digitise over the past year as the pandemic hampered them from conducting business as usual. This has popularised the industry of services provided by the dark web, increased collaboration between cybercrime groups, and ensured cyber cartels are now more powerful than their traditional organised crime counterparts.

So, how should the financial industry respond? To start, here are a few strategies for security teams: • Conduct weekly threat hunting and normalise it as a best practice to fuel threat intelligence. We were happy to hear from the CISOs we spoke with that 48% already conduct weekly threat hunts.

• Integrate your network detection and response with your end-point protection platforms.

• Apply “Just in time” administration.

• Deploy workload security.

The game has changed, and so must the financial sector’s security strategy.

Safety and soundness will only be maintained by empowering the CISO. 2021 should be the year that CISOs report directly to the CEO and be given greater authority and resources.

Bob Parisi, Head of Cyber Solutions – North America, Munich Re, echoed the importance of up leveling the role of the CISO as cyberattacks surge: “The report’s findings around an increased level of destructive attacks and island hopping makes it clear that financial institutions remain in the crosshairs.

VMware’s recommendation that CISOs should be elevated to C-level aligns with the fact that cyber risk is an operational risk that needs to be managed across a spectrum of technology, process and people, including the use of financial instruments like cyber insurance.”

It’s no longer a matter of if, but when “the next SolarWinds” will occur. As a result, cybersecurity must be viewed as a functionality of business versus an expense. Trust and confidence in the safety and soundness in the financial sector will depend on it.

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COVER STORY

A HOLISTIC

APPROACH SOPHOS HAS CREATED AN ADAPTIVE CYBERSECURITY ECOSYSTEM – AN OPEN PLATFORM WITH FLEXIBLE APIS – TO TACKLE THE NEW REALITY OF HUMANLED HACKING. DAN SCHIAPPA, CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER AT SOPHOS, TALKS ABOUT WHY ENTERPRISES NEED TO MOVE FROM SECURITY MANAGEMENT TO SECURITY OPERATIONS TO BEAT HACKERS AT THEIR OWN GAME.

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e have seen a huge surge in cyberattacks last year. Is it going to get worse this year?

What we see is much of the same pattern continuing this year. We still see ransomware, and we’ve just released our annual ransomware report, which provides fresh insights into the frequency and impact of these attacks. There is no slowdown in ransomware attacks because it is really, really successful.

The ransomware groups are spread across different avenues. You have groups like Maze, which employ sophisticated nation-state operations and go after very large customers in the critical infrastructure sectors. On the other hand, you have a ransomware family such as Dharma that provides tools to less technical cybercriminals, who propagate large-scale attacks against small businesses. There are many reasons why these criminal gangs are successful – they are finding soft targets, and people are still paying the ransom. One of the things we discovered in our report is that even if you pay the ransom, the likelihood of getting all your data back is very slim. For a large enterprise, the cost of full recovery 14

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OUR MANAGED THREAT RESPONSE SERVICES ARE A CASE IN POINT WHERE WE ACTUALLY DO THREAT HUNTING, DETECTION, AND RESPONSE FOR YOU. NO ONE CAN DEPLOY A FIREWALL OR THE CHEAPEST ENDPOINT SOFTWARE AND THINK THEY ARE SAFE. EVERYONE IS VULNERABLE, PARTICULARLY IF YOU ARE PART OF SOMEONE ELSE’S SUPPLY CHAIN. could be millions of dollars. So, until we improve our cybersecurity ecosystem and stop paying those ransoms, the bad guys are going to keep coming.

Is ransomware the most significant threat today? How about DDoS and other malware?

They are all still popular. When it comes to DDoS, the industry has done a lot better at protecting against it, but you will continue to see them being used for disruptions. There is also an uptick in nation-state activity where they exploit supply chain vulnerabilities to gain access to final targets. Those things have been going on for some time, but it reached a fever pitch last year. I don’t think there would be any new area of focus for cybercriminals simply because they have been having a lot of success in what they are doing so far.

What percentage of digital transformation budgets should be earmarked for cybersecurity?

It is hard to put a number on it because it varies by industry, but I think it should be significant. In the last five years, there is a big focus on cyber because of ransomware attacks like WannaCry, which did a lot of damage. Now, security has become a boardroom discussion, and CISOs are getting a seat at the table.

Cybersecurity has become mainstream in companies of all sizes, but there is still some catching up to do.

Some prime industries, such as financial services, are ahead of the game, but the rest is still lagging. In my opinion, security technologies such as SOC and threat hunting, typically used by sophisticated customers, should become mainstream for every company. And if you don’t have the skills or budget to build a SOC, find an outsourced capability.

Our managed threat response services are a case in point where we actually do threat hunting, detection, and response for you. No one can deploy a firewall or the cheapest endpoint software and think they are safe. Everyone is vulnerable, particularly if you are part of someone else’s supply chain.

Do you offer SOC as a service?

We do various things – obviously, we have software that our customers use

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COVER STORY

to protect themselves. We have a very successful endpoint protection product called Intercept X. We have an endpoint detection and response product used by advanced threat hunters to do security operations.

We also offer this as a service if you don’t have threat hunting capabilities, and our security practitioners will monitor your environment 24/7. We have an emergency incident response service called Rapid Response, aimed at customers hit with an attack to help them get through the incident and minimise damage. We have just released a new next-gen firewall dubbed XGS to inspect encrypted traffic on the network security side. Cybercriminals are using TLS encryption to hide their malware, and we have precise capabilities to inspect this traffic at wire speed, which is something most firewalls can’t do.

So, we have plenty of opportunities to protect our customers with a broad portfolio of products and services.

How are you evolving your synchronised security strategy?

We have expanded synchronised security to our whole portfolio. We have just launched a new feature called ‘search and destroy’ that connects intelligence from endpoints to email security solutions. But where we have taken it to the next level is through what we call the Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem (ACE). This is a full ecosystem of both Sophos and nonSophos products that feeds information into a data lake, which we leverage with the help of AI to detect suspicious behaviours and incidents faster and respond automatically. We also tunnel all that information through our XDR, which goes beyond the endpoint, allowing human intelligence to augment artificial intelligence across the whole spectrum.

What is adaptive security? Is it about continuously monitoring threats and responding automatically?

Part of the adaptive strategy is 16

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BUT WHERE WE HAVE TAKEN IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL IS THROUGH WHAT WE CALL THE ADAPTIVE CYBERSECURITY ECOSYSTEM (ACE). THIS IS A FULL ECOSYSTEM OF BOTH SOPHOS AND NON-SOPHOS PRODUCTS THAT FEEDS INFORMATION INTO A DATA LAKE, WHICH WE LEVERAGE WITH THE HELP OF AI TO DETECT SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOURS AND INCIDENTS FASTER AND RESPOND AUTOMATICALLY. automated response. We are trying to create a cybersecurity ecosystem that adapts to threats and risks. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an active threat; it could be just a risk that has not been exploited yet, but you still need to address it. Much of it is done through automation, and some of it will be done with human interaction. No matter how good we are as an industry, there is no way you can automate everything. This is why having a combination of AI with human intelligence is important.

What security processes can be automated?

It depends on the solutions that you have in your ecosystem and the API access they have. It’s hard to say how much of it can be automated, but it keeps getting better as we add more

capable tools to automation. It is variable, and the plan is to automate as much as possible.

Can you stop most of the threats if you have a good XDR platform?

XDR will detect a lot of the threats, but it can’t prevent something from initiating. It should detect threats quickly and allow either AI or human intelligence to kick in and defend against those threats. There are always two elements to security – prevention and detection. We in the industry are always fighting about which one is more important, but both are equally important.

Can zero trust be extended to the endpoint?

It can and it should. There are a couple of elements that we can easily connect. For example, I work remotely, and I have a zero-trust PC that uses zero-trust networking access to get the resources I need for work. So, one of the steps before I get access is the health check of that device.

Another step is making the endpoint truly similar to how a zero-trust cloud service would work where you don’t trust anything by default.

Is this where multi-factor authentication becomes very important?

I think MFA will be hugely important because there will be circumstances where some malicious actor would virtually get hold of the device and compromise it. We want to look at the activities and understand when we see something abnormal. Then you can invoke the second factor – you don’t have to do it all the time, but you may want to do it conditionally. What is nice about the second factor is that it’s typically something you already have combined with something you know such as passwords. So, having biometric as a strong form of authentication works only if it’s a second factor, and I think it will be a critical element as we advance.

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FEATURE

READY FOR PRIME TIME WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BLOCKCHAIN

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he current year promises to be an exciting one for blockchain technology with improved interoperability and significant efforts from vendors to improve scalability, latency, and data privacy. Besides the banking and finance sector, blockchain technology has evinced strong interest in sectors such as manufacturing and healthcare with some interesting use cases.

According to the IDC Blockchain Spending Guide published in August 2020, spending on blockchain in the META region will grow by 3.5 times by 2024, registering a staggering compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.37% for the 2020 to 2024 forecast period.

Manish Ranjan, Program Manager for Software & Cloud at IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa, says, “Blockchain is a promising technology which has introduced a ‘trust layer’ in industry ecosystem. Many organisations across markets and industries within the wider Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region continue to increase their investment in blockchain technology.

Banking, financial services and Insurance (BFSI), retail and wholesale, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare are the

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leading industry verticals investing in the blockchain technology in META region.”

The accelerated demand for blockchain solutions has prompted many big tech vendors to offer blockchain as a service, which helps businesses to access this technology without investing in-house development.

“There is definitely an increase in the number of blockchain projects that are being initiated year after year since 2017.

However, the percentage of the projects going live is still on the low side and falls

Ali Al Shami

anywhere between 4% and 15% of the total projects depending on the region. In general and for such a new technology, this percentage is a good indicator that the appetite for experimentation is high and that both governments and private investors are willing to invest and explore the potential outcomes,” says Bassam Rached, Director – Digital Business Solutions, Gulf Business Machines (GBM).

What are the key blockchain trends to watch in 2021?

Bassam Rached

Waleed Rassuli

Ali Al Shami, Country Manager - KSA & Bahrain, Red Hat, picks enterprise blockchain as one of the top trends, interest in which will continue to surge as businesses strive to streamline their processes at scale with complete visibility and control. “Another is blockchain-asa-service (BaaS). As enterprises move forward with plans to equip themselves with blockchain infrastructure and technology, they will pursue this particular business model, which involves a third party installing, hosting, and maintaining the blockchain network in return for an agreed fee. Other trends will also be visible across the wider enterprise community, including supply chain optimisation and the introduction of central bank digital currencies,” he says.

Sunath Kolazhi, Vice President of Sales for Middle East & Africa, SettleMint, agrees that governments and central banks are actively exploring how they can leverage distributed ledger technology like blockchain to improve monetary and fiscal policy execution.

“Second is the rise of NFT’s or (nonfungible tokens) which have gotten a lot of attention in the media lately around its use in digital art. However additionally, NFTs have the potential to create digitised and fractionalised representations of real assets like land, diamonds, or other commodities,” he says.

According to Waleed Rassuli, Head of Tezos Gulf, tokenisation of assets will allow projects like real estate or other

Antoine Maisonneuve

investment products to be accessed by a wider pool of investors, regardless of where they are. “Because assets can be fragmented into bite size investment blocks, it gives access to investors that would traditionally not have the ability to invest in products like real estate or bonds.

This also opens the possibility of making these assets liquid and gives investors the opportunity to reduce their exposure whenever they want to,” he says.

Mohammed El Khateb, Consumer Packaged Goods Segment Director Middle East & Africa at Schneider Electric, says advances in blockchain technology could enable the food and beverage industry (F&B) to enhance traceability. In the US alone, food recalls and foodborne illnesses cost $77 billion per annum, including discarded products, loss of revenue, damage to corporate reputations and healthcare costs.

“Blockchain has the potential to be used in many different industries and contexts due to the high degree of transnational efficiency it provides. Moreover, blockchain should soon allow energy “prosumers” to buy and sell electrons. And EV’s will be doubling as storage capacities to help stabilise electricity grids when the demand for energy peaks,” he says.

Antoine Maisonneuve, Blockchain Program Manager, Orange Business Services, says blockchain will increase the efficiency and transparency of supply chains. “Today, the biggest blockchain projects in industry aim to

Farid Faraidooni

automate supply chain track and trace processes. There is a large ROI incentive to link all partners on the same trusted network. It will have a major impact on the transparency and the efficiency of the transactions between companies, with a huge reduction in disputes. Tradelens – an open ecosystem of interconnected supply chain partners - is a perfect example.”

Another big trend in this space is the rise of private blockchains, where only a select group of stakeholders have the authority in the network.

Farid Faraidooni, Chief New Business and Innovation Officer, du, says it is important to clearly understand private blockchain. In simple terms, a private blockchain is a shared ledger(DLT) that is secured by traditional security techniques, such as limited user rights. Generally, security is provided to a private blockchain using private keys known only to the related organisation.

“A private blockchain is a category of the blockchain technology, where WriteRead permissions to the ledger might be restricted based on the organisation’s usability. And that’s why private blockchain provides more opportunities to businesses in terms of leveraging the blockchain technology for business-to-business use cases,” he says.

Al Shami from Red Hat says public and private blockchain are both attractive propositions due to the respective benefits they provide. For example, public blockchains provide

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Manish Ranjan

greater network security and support enterprises in reducing costs, while private blockchains facilitate a higher number of transactions at greater speed.

As such, it is likely that public and private blockchain will continue to co-exist over the coming years, especially given the fact that enterprises have different requirements and aspirations.

“Moreover, we will probably witness more types of blockchain emerge during this period, with a hybrid option that combines public and private blockchain to provide solutions certainly feasible,” he says.

Rassuli from Tezos says while private blockchains do make it on the outset easier and faster to transact, public blockchains have more resources, checks and balances in place to make it a very attractive proposition especially for the enterprise level transactions. On private blockchain, you also pay for any upgrade which for a business is a huge cost to bear.

Ranjan from IDC opines there will be an existence of a hybrid blockchain where both public (which is more decentralised), as well as private blockchain (i.e. more centralised), are being used for specific use cases. “At the same time, a few organisations consider running their own blockchain solutions. There are certain use cases that are best to be kept on the public blockchain while more specific one can go on private blockchain. Private blockchain enables organisations to have 20

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Mohamed El Khateb

complete access control by setting up a permissioned network to validate who is allowed to participate. This will continue to gain traction among organisations looking to implement blockchain mainly for business-to-business (B2B) use cases where they want to have greater security and privacy,” he says.

Blockchain as a service (BaaS) is also expected to drive market growth in the coming years.

“The ‘as-a-service’ model of distribution has been key to the rapid adoption of several technology trends, including cloud computing, the internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI). Blockchain is likely to be next, with companies including Amazon, IBM and Microsoft, all offering or developing tools and platforms enabling businesses to leverage the technology without making up-front investments in infrastructure and skills,” says Maisonneuve from Orange Business Services.

Kolazhi from SettleMint says the amount of resources needed remains challenging for enterprises aiming to move their blockchain use cases past proof-of-concept (POC) and into implementation. As a result, it makes sense to start looking for low-code and blockchain-platform-as-a-services to make a developer’s job as easy as possible when working with this nascent technology, he says.

Faraidooni from du says regionally and internationally, more and more

Sunath Kolazhi

companies continue to introduce new tools or developing valuable platforms that others can leverage without investing in advance. “This shows no signs of slowing down, meaning enterprises can accelerate their aspirations with peace of mind that upfront investment issues will not arise with blockchain-as-a-service.”

Du has recently developed UAEflavored Blockchain Platform as a service (Blockchain Edge). This locally hosted, cloud-native blockchain service allows users to provision a private blockchain networks on multiple blockchain protocols with complete network interoperability in minutes on different availability zones within the UAE. Ranjan from IDC says when planning to implement blockchain technology, it is vital to go slow as the market is still nascent. In most of the cases, it is advised to select a blockchain technology partner which brings in the technology expertise, offers required domain or vertical exposure and provides a much-needed prototype or sandbox environment to the organisations to do the initial testing and trials at less investment.

“Learn from the global success stories and blockchain methodologies and start with sandboxing and testing of those solutions that seem relevant to your business. Hire skills and resources that are needed to ensure better results, but with minimal upfront investment as this will help to minimise losses in the case of failure,” he says.

INTERVIEW

SHAPING THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATIONS PANKAJ GUPTA, CEO AND FOUNDER OF VCLOUDX, EXPLAINS WHY ENTERPRISES ARE RAPIDLY ADOPTING CPAAS SOLUTION TO ACCELERATE DIGITAL BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION INITIATIVES.

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hat can you tell us about your company?

We are almost a 4-year-old company and have been commercially active for nearly a year now. We spent more than two years building our product, which was initially launched in India. We are a 50-member team with our HQ in Singapore and two engineering centres in India. We are one of the very few fullstack CPaaS (communication platform as a service) providers that offer endto-end communication APIs for video, voice, and SMS. Over the last six months, we have started working with customers across various geographies, including the Middle East, where a couple of fintech players use our video platform for KYC. What is driving the demand for CPaaS? A few things have happened since the term CPaaS was coined. We have seen it mature in the last couple of years and being abused at the same time. If you look at the core definition of CPaaS, it is all about communication APIs, on top of which you can build everything. However, even SMS gateway vendors or simple call centre solution providers call themselves CPaaS providers.

We have definitely seen a huge uptake in communication platforms in the last two three years, and this work from home trend has brought in some tailwind, especially on the video side of APIs. What is really driving the demand is the move towards omnichannel customer experience. As you know, communication channels are moving away from traditional voice to more of an integrated experience, and CPaaS

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has become an important tool for CIOs for seamless integration of different channels of communication within in the workflow of their business applications.

Are you seeing new CPaaS use cases?

Many use cases are emerging, especially in healthcare, field services, and retail. In retail, for example, video commerce is gaining a lot of traction as a result of this pandemic where video content is being used to demonstrate products to customers online.

In addition to basic CPaaS, there is also a huge interest in value-added capabilities such as emotion AI or using annotation tools on top of video calls. A case in point is video-based contact centres where AI is taking customer interaction service to the next level.

Do you offer omnichannel messaging capabilities and chatbots?

Our messaging offering is expanding.

We already have SMS, in-app messaging and we are constantly adding new channels. We don’t do chatbots because in my view, it is an application. As a CPaaS provider, we are sitting at a layer below, and when we talk about AI, it is on the video analytics side for features such as facial recognition and emotion analysis.

What is the difference between UCaaS and CPaaS? UCaaS is a product built on top of CPaaS, which is the underlying technology stack. A genuine CPaaS platform gives you flexible APIs that you can use to build any solution. Some players claim to be CPaaS providers, but what they actually do is offer you products, exposing some APIs, which is not pure-play CPaaS.

Do you think WebRTC will be a gamechanger for CPaaS? Our video stack is based on WebRTC, and is now the de facto mechanism for video and voice communications through browsers and mobile devices. Recently, even the biggies like Apple and Microsoft have started supporting WebRTC. Though it is an evolving technology, it is going to be the future of real-time communication.

What kind of verticals are you targeting?

As a CPaaS platform, we are very horizontal in nature. We offer APIs, which can be consumed by anyone building any kind of application. We have consumers across all verticals. We have one of the biggest contact centres in India using our platform for video communications.

Likewise, we have clients in the fintech space using video for customer verification and healthcare providers for remote consultation.

What are some of the key CPaaS trends to watch out for this year?

We believe the video will take off in a big way, with 5G acting as a catalyst. Video will become the de facto communication channel, and more and more voice applications will start working on a video at the click of a button. As the adoption of video increases, video analytics will also become important.

Is yours a cloud-based platform?

We offer services over the cloud but can also deploy the platform with full capabilities on-prem, hybrid, or even private cloud. That’s what makes us unique. We are currently in talks with a few banks in the Middle East for deploying the whole stack in their data centres because of regulatory reasons. Microsoft has a cloud data centre in the UAE, and we can set up a dedicated instance in this facility to offer our platform on the cloud so that there is no data transfer outside of the region.

INTERVIEW

DEFENDING YOUR BUSINESS FROM CYBER THREATS SERGUEI BELOUSSOV, CEO OF ACRONIS, EXPLAINS WHY ENTERPRISES NEED ALL-IN-ONE CYBER PROTECTION TO WARD OFF CYBER-ATTACKS. figure out why it happened in the first place. It could be a faulty hardware or software, the bad guys or good users who made a mistake. Security is just one aspect of it.

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Are DDoS and ransomware the most prominent attack vectors now?

The DDoS attack has become more common, and the industry has become better at mitigating it. Besides, the bad guys don’t really make any money out of it, but they do it from ransomware attacks. We notice that attacks have become more automated and integrated, combining ransomware with phishing and data privacy attacks.

cronis is talking about cyber protection. What does it represent?

How can you stop ransomware attacks?

It is not enough to have just It is a never-ending problem. You can’t security or data protection stop it, but you can dramatically decrease – what you need is cyber protection, which the damage. Basically, what you need is comprises security, backup, DR, and prevention, detection, response, recovery, endpoint management. At the same time, forensics – all in one platform. Ransomware when it comes to backup, you shouldn’t attacks are dangerous even in cases where think only about recovery. Ten years back, you can recover data. And if you don’t the focus was on restore and in the last do forensics, it can be repeated. It would five years, it’s changed to recovery. Now, ngapore citizen, than two dozen companies around be the world, best if you did everything to detect youthe founder also needof more to think about prevention, nder and Chairman of excessive Acronis Board of Directors of the data protection detection, and response.

When you have Acronis, Chairman of the Board of Directors and founder of Parallels,these attacks in real-time and stop them, unding Partner of Runayou Capital, Phystech Ventures and Qwave Capital butventure it is not always possible. However, if a breach, need to detect and respond 1995 he left Russia to Singapore and became a your business has a good defence and quickly without ever needing recovery.

And nt Singaporean Technology entrepreneur. prevention mechanism, the bad guys would should you ever need to recover, you also in Computer Science instead attack someone else because there need forensics to find out what happened Computer Science hysics and Electrical Engineering, cum laude are plenty of easy targets around. and make sure it doesn’t happen again. So hysics, cum laude to summarise, it is not just about backup ed 200+ (USPTO), H-index of 26 Do you think AI will drive the future and recovery but cyber protection, which of cybersecurity? is all about safety, accessibility, privacy, AI is an overused word, and it just a tool authenticity, and security. like object-oriented programming or common language runtime. It is going What is the difference between to be used everywhere, and it will play a cybersecurity and cyber protection? crucial role in preventing attacks. In fact, it It combines cybersecurity with backup, would be impossible to imagine any non-AI DR, endpoint management, vulnerability prevention technologies in the near future. assessment, penetration testing, and But is it important to remember bad guys so on. It is a complete package. If your will also use AI in cyber-attacks. system is broken, you have to fix it and

B (Serguei Beloussov)

Can you tell us more about your Cyber Protect Cloud offering?

Cyber Protect is not a cloud offering but a product that we offer as a cloud service, and you can also install it on-premise. Of course, the best way to use it is over the cloud because that makes it easy to manage.

Three years ago, people said they don’t trust the cloud, but now they realised the only way to get fully protected is to migrate to the cloud. That’s when you get professionally managed data centre, perimeter, workloads, which you can’t do in-house because of a skills shortage. Cyber Protect combines backup, DR, remote management, and many other security tools. It also integrates authenticity and privacy management in a single agent, UI, and policy, and is easy to use. For businesses, what really matters is their applications and systems, and they shouldn’t spend too much time on security it should be really easy to use.

Is the cloud inherently more secure?

We have seen some SaaS providers also getting hacked recently, like in the case of SolarWinds.

What was compromised was their onpremise product, not a cloud-based one.

We are headquartered in Switzerland, and we were always paranoid about protection.

Suddenly, the bad guys have realised that it is more lucrative to attack the vendor.

When you attack a vendor, you target every customer at once. Nevertheless, vendors are still better protected than their customers.

What kind of backup approach do you recommend- full, incremental, or synthetic?

It depends on your business. The best approach is continuous data protection, but it is more expensive and taxing on your systems. I will give you an analogy – when you are sick, you are super protected in ICU, but do you want to spend all your life there? Our recommendation is to use a managed service provider who can understand your situation and develop the best protection plan for you.

We have many MSP partners in this region, and this year, we expect 20-30 percent growth in the MSP partner ecosystem. We also have five distributors here, and we are planning to set up 111 data centres globally over the next couple of years, and several of them will be in the GCC.

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THE NEW WAY OF WORKING THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE IS GOING TO BE A KEY ELEMENT OF THE FUTURE OF WORK. IS YOUR BUSINESS READY TO LEVERAGE THE ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY TO TRANSFORM YOUR WORKFORCE?

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he rise of working from home is forcing many organisations to rethink how their employees work and create digital workplaces. However, the path to a digital workplace is riddled with complexity as it takes more than providing digital tools and cloud-based applications to your employees.

So, how can organisations create a successful digital workplace experience for their employees? Before getting started on the journey to workforce transformation, it is important for CIOs to understand the difference between digital workspace and digital workplace.

Gartner defines the digital workplace

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as a business strategy to boost employee agility and engagement through a more consumerised work environment, built on top of innovations in technologies such as automation, collaboration, and artificial intelligence.

Haidi Nossair, Sr. Director – Client Solutions Group, MERAT, Dell Technologies, says the digital workplace is a work environment that seamlessly connects data and people regardless of location. “It’s where work is not considered a place to go to, but a set of responsibilities and tasks to drive outcomes without geographical boundaries. Through the support of a robust IT ecosystem, a digital workplace

is where the remote workforce collaborates within dynamic teams around the free-flowing exchange of ideas and secure sharing of documents and data.”

According to Vijay Jaswal, CTO of Software AG Middle East and Turkey, digital workplace can be simply defined as a virtual version of the ‘physical office’ or a digital twin of the physical office – a space such as home, café, etc. that provides the ability to function in exactly same manner as a brick-andmortar workplace.

“It should mirror the physical workplace, in allowing activities such as virtually collaborating with

co-workers, attending meetings and conferences seamlessly without internet or surrounding interruptions, accessing data and information using the company’s IT applications, as well as information from external sources such as partners, suppliers and vendors,” he says.

Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai, offers a different perspective: “The digital workplace represents the radical and rapid transformation in the way work gets done. Any business or entity that is adopting technology as a means of improving individual and team productivity, enabling new ways of working and collaboration, and enhancing the overall employee experience, owns a digital workplace.”

The digital workplace trends It is almost certain that the workplace will remain largely virtual in 2021 and slowly evolve into a hybrid model with a distributed and geographically dispersed workforce.

Given the many proven advantages of a digital workplace, such as increased employee productivity, enhanced communication, and reduced operational costs, more and more organisations are devoting their IT budget to support digital workplace strategies that aim to produce measurable returns.

Gill from Heriot-Watt says organisations will look towards enhancing employee productivity further by enabling better remote work experiences, be it in the form of home set-up upgrades or software investments, such as AI/ML or process automation.

Though Covid-19 has pushed many businesses towards the digital workplace, the workplace concept was changing even before the pandemic hit with a growing demand for flexible working practices and for employees to be able to access their work files and email from outside of the office.

“The pandemic accelerated these trends and made distributed working essential. As countries make progress

GIVEN THE MANY PROVEN ADVANTAGES OF A DIGITAL WORKPLACE, SUCH AS INCREASED EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY, ENHANCED COMMUNICATION, AND REDUCED OPERATIONAL COSTS, MORE AND MORE ORGANISATIONS ARE DEVOTING THEIR IT BUDGET TO SUPPORT DIGITAL WORKPLACE STRATEGIES THAT AIM TO PRODUCE MEASURABLE RETURNS. with their vaccination programmes, and as the pandemic abates, it’s clear that working practices may never return to their former ‘normal’. In fact, recent research from VMware and Vanson Bourne found that across EMEA, there has been a 41% increase in employees who now recognise remote working as a pre-requisite rather than a perk,” says Ihab Farhoud, Director, Solutions Engineering – METNA, VMware Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.

Nossair from Dell Technologies agrees that the remote workplace is here to stay. The last year has shown many companies that the physical working space is not essential, and with the right technologies, remote working can be successful too.

“As a large number of companies have shifted to the digital workplace over the last year, we can also expect to see further innovations in peripherals such as monitors which will enhance both productivity as well as user experience, especially as companies continue to operate remotely and virtual meetings and video conferencing stay central to day-to-day activities.

“Technologies such as artificial

Chris Pope

Haidi Nossair

intelligence (AI) and cloud are already rapidly changing how we work – from needing to deploy, secure, manage and support devices from the cloud to automating redundant processes and tasks that will free up employees to be more innovative – businesses need to seamlessly adapt to a new world of work that’s constantly evolving,” she comments.

Building blocks Though there are no hard and fast rules for building a thriving digital workplace culture, CIOs will have to follow some best practices and adapt to the changes required.

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Ihab Farhoud

Stephen Gill

Vijay Jaswal

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Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow, says connecting employees and knowledge workers is crucial for the coordination of work across the enterprise and workplace.

Utilising digital platforms which are connected and seamlessly integrated ensures that employees can focus on what matters, to deliver great service to customers, without technology barriers being a hindrance.

“The ability to network and connect effortlessly across departments and traditional organisation boundaries ensures that work is far more effective and timely, without technical limitations being a poor excuse for not providing great service levels. We must not underestimate that we all still and must communicate with our fellow employees, but also ensure we are open, collaborative and sharing,” he says.

Jaswal from Software AG says employee experience should be at the heart of any digital workplace strategy. “From workspace setup, the location, the internet connection and devices that employees use through the day – the workspace not only needs to provide a level of flexibility but also the basic requirements to keep up with the demands of the employees and their respective departments. This includes everything from computers, mobile devices and productivity and collaboration applications, chatbots, virtual assistant technology, personal analytics, and immersive workspaces.

Having said that, corporates today are in fact even sending coffee brewing machines to digital work locations which also encourages coffee team meetings with the freshly brewed coffee – another area that simulates a physical workspace,” he says.

Farhoud from VMware adds that the critical requirements for the digital workplace are ease of use, reliability, and security. Whether employees are at home, in the office or anywhere else, they want to be able to access their work files and data seamlessly on any device.

“Today’s workforce all too often faces key challenges like fragmented security, operational complexity and subpar experiences. These issues require rethinking how organisations enable seamless workspaces without limitation.

It’s important to put employees first with a pre-integrated solution that delivers secure and seamless experiences while reducing costs and operational overhead,” he says.

Common obstacles While businesses can reap many benefits from the digital workplace in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction, there are some unique challenges that IT leaders need to address before embracing it. One of the most common challenges in shifting to a digital workplace for early adopters has been the cybersecurity risks. The Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index 2020 Snapshot found that 80% of regional organisations have suffered a disruptive event in the last 12 months – up from 77 percent in 2018.

“Basically, amid COVID-19 there has been a 148% spike in ransomware attacks on global organisations. Employees have admitted to being lax when it comes to following safe data practices when working from home and hence, this requires built-in security on the hardware as well as intelligent solutions to prevent, detect and remediate attacks, encrypt sensitive information and protect data,” says Nossair.

Farhoud says organisations can overcome the common barriers to a digital workspace by placing more emphasis on ensuring they have the digital flexibility to adapt to fastchanging scenarios. “Technology is changing the world faster than ever before, and the best way for organisations to gain the flexibility they need is to embrace cloud-ready solutions, and to ensure they have the right policies, culture and mindset across their organisation to be adaptable and open to tapping new opportunities in this new unpredictable world,” he concludes.

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VIEWPOINT

THE IMPORTANCE OF VISIBILITY ELIE DIB, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EMEA AT RIVERBED TECHNOLOGY, WRITES VISIBILITY IS KEY FOR ACTIONABLE INSIGHT IN THE ‘INFRASTRUCTURE EVERYWHERE’ ENTERPRISE.

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ith several countries in the Middle East having successfully reopened their economies, it’s safe to say that the seismic shift in workforce trends that was predicted to extend beyond the peak of the pandemic is indeed here to stay.

Given that businesses across a range of sizes, verticals, and geographies have embraced hybrid work models, its unsurprising that recent research from Riverbed found that organisations expect a 50% increase in employees working remotely post-COVID-19.

Consequently, CIOs must now look to develop a more long-term mindset and establish a consistent infrastructure that can support employees working everywhere and anywhere.

The key to this ‘infrastructure everywhere’ setup is gaining strong visibility over the network and optimising performance of applications that businesses have come to rely on over the last 12 months – regardless of the location employees are working from.

Getting ‘Infrastructure Everywhere’ Right One of the primary IT needs through the pandemic has been to ensure seamless collaboration between employees and customers. This translated to the adoption of SaaS applications and collaboration tools such as Slack, Zoom and Office 365 at a pace never previously imagined. In fact, in Zoom’s latest quarterly results, the company reported its total global revenue for the quarter to be up 369% year-over-year as it remained a critical communication and collaboration service during the pandemic.

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However, the adoption of these new technologies has not been without its challenges for CIOs and their IT teams.

Not only did these teams have to manage the influx of new applications and personal devices onto the network, they had to do so with minimal visibility over what was happening, where it was happening and when. As a result, businesses have been left vulnerable to security threats and inefficiencies in the network. If left unaddressed, these threats could now hinder efficiency of application performance, damage employee productivity and ultimately have detrimental financial impact on the wider business.

The businesses that ignore these issues and fail to establish an infrastructure everywhere setup will be the ones leaving themselves ill-equipped to deal with the employee demands of working anywhere. As we continue to progress through 2021, it’s time for CIOs and their teams to embrace infrastructure everywhere and ensure they have the best technology solutions to support this.

Focus on Visibility to Drive Performance While employees become accustomed to being able to work from anywhere – whether it be in a café, at the office, at home or while they’re waiting for the car to be fixed – it is vital that CIOs and their IT teams have the right visibility and performance solutions in place. It is simply not an option for there to be SaaS applications and collaboration tools that are slow, inefficient or temperamental as this could lead to considerable impact on employee productivity and business growth. CIOs and the IT teams need to adopt solutions that give a holistic overview of the network if they are to succeed in developing an infrastructure that supports working from everywhere.

To achieve this, businesses must invest in network performance management (NPM) solutions that collect and analyse data flowing through every application from each device in use. Armed with these insights, IT teams can quickly identify what problems are occurring and take the necessary steps to resolve them, regardless of where employees are working from.

For example, application acceleration tools can be installed to manage both bandwidth and latency fuelled network problems caused by bandwidth-hungry applications such as video conferencing.

In using complementary application acceleration and network performance management solutions, IT teams are able to optimise the performance of the network, prevent any negative impact from slow-running systems and enable employees to effectively and productively work from anywhere.

Ongoing Optimisation It is clear that 2021 must be the year of establishing infrastructure everywhere – underpinned by the correct network visibility and application performance tools that will help enhance employee experience. By adopting the right solutions, businesses can operate with the assurance that employees can remain productive and continue to drive innovation for the wider business, irrespective of whatever location they are working from, this year and beyond.

VIEWPOINT

AN AGENDA FOR RESILIENCE

ALEXANDER MALIENKO, BUSINESS UNIT DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, DYNABOOK EUROPE, ON THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE IT TEAM IN THE FACE OF POST-COVID CHALLENGES

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ith the constant development of technology over the last decade, the IT team’s role has been steadily evolving. Traditionally, the complexity and novelty of technology demanded on-hand expertise, with the IT department at the heart of the business. While IT remains a critical part of any organisation, today’s more tech-adverse employees are equipped with more accessible and understandable technologies. This has meant the conventional role of the hands-on IT team has been redefined to meet the digital era.

That was until the coronavirus pandemic erupted. While most businesses are built to support a small number of remote workers, few have likely planned for such a dramatic increase in the number of employees working from home. In the face of this new and unprecedented working environment, with technology at its heart, IT departments saw an influx of user support requests. As a result, a renewed reliance on IT has been formed.

But what does this mean for the IT team? And what challenges does this present for them?

Managing a hybrid IT environment Social distancing remains in force which means that many businesses can’t logistically bring back all of their workforce into the office for the foreseeable future.

That said, having seen the benefits of remote working during this period, some have even taken the decision to allow their staff to work from home “forever”, if they wish.

For the IT manager, this adds a level of complexity that many will have never seen before. Having some employees working from within the office and others from remote locations creates a more defined hybrid IT ecosystem, likely with the added complications

of orchestrating IT assets across multiple on-premise and cloud environment, as well as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

Managing this new environment means that the scope of your IT team now reaches beyond the four digital walls of the company and involves ensuring all employees are getting the same IT experience, no matter their location.

Connectivity outside of the office Although IT teams don’t control the employee’s environment, they are still responsible for their employee’s IT experience. With this in mind, connectivity also remains an important consideration.

Ensuring a stable connection between the end-user and a company’s network, data and applications is increasingly challenging. In many cases during the pandemic, IT departments have been struggling to maintain a reliable and robust network infrastructure to cope with increased demand. As mass remote working continues, some IT teams may find they need to not only bolster but re-skill their workforce in-house to effectively manage these needs.

However, this is only part of the solution.

Avoiding potentially costly downtime related to connectivity issues also boils right down to employee device level. IT managers investing in new hardware to equip their workforces need to consider devices which have the latest WiFi capabilities, as well as Bluetooth and sufficient peripheral connections such as HDMI and USB ports. Not only this, but

the importance of a reliable camera, quality audio and reduced fan noise has never been more important in the face of a growing reliance on video conferencing.

Managing security risks Unsurprisingly, security remains a key concern for IT teams. Now that data is outside of the business’s digital walls, there is increased risk of it being compromised or lost. A recent survey from Microsoft found that 90 per cent of organisations have been impacted by phishing attacks, for example.

What’s more, while BYOD isn’t exactly a new concept, it has renewed significance in light of current times. Many organisations are seeing an increase in employee-owned devices attempting to remotely access corporate networks and potentially sensitive information. With a BYOD strategy, IT teams are left with little control. This increased threat has seen IT managers have to not only converge with security teams but also become cybersecurity experts in their own right to stay ahead of potential new attacks and scams. Many have had to quickly boost both their team size as well as the investment into tools and technologies that will protect employees and business data.

These mobile device management solutions - designed to secure company data and devices - are often built-in to products and come at little or no additional cost. As far as protecting the device itself goes, biometric tools such as fingerprint recognition exist across many devices. Other defences include zero client solutions, which ensure devices themselves do not retain sensitive information. Instead, information is stored on a central, cloudbased system so if a device is lost or stolen, the data remains secure.

According to Microsoft’s CEO, at the start of COVID-19 pandemic we saw two years of digital transformation take place within just two months. This level of acceleration has shaken up the daily responsibilities of many IT departments, while at the same time presenting network capacity, security and even skillset challenges. As businesses begin to engage post-coronavirus recovery strategies amidst a potentially uncertain future, what is certain is that the IT team will continue to have renewed importance in this new normal.

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REPORT

MAKING SENSE OF THREAT REPORTS FIVE TIPS FROM SECURITY PROS TO IMPROVE THREAT REPORT ANALYSIS AND ACTION

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ost organisations have more threat intelligence than they know what to do with, from a variety of sources – commercial, open source, government, industry sharing groups and security vendors. Bombarded by millions of threat datapoints every day, it can seem impossible to appreciate or realise the full value of third-party data. In a recent CyberSocial webcast, industry experts David Grout, CTO EMEA for FireEye and Yann Le Borgne, Technical Director for ThreatQuotient, helped listeners tackle this challenge. Using threat reports as an example of one type of published threat information, they responded 30

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to real-time polling results as they provided advice on how to analyse a threat report and make it actionable.

Here are five tips they shared.

1

Select the right sources of threat data for your organisation.

When polled, the audience reported using a well-balanced combination of sources of threat intelligence. They are on the right track, but David explains that it is also important to identify the right sources for your organisation and collect threat reports from several different sources as they provide different levels of content – strategic, operational and tactical. Figure out the who, what and when for consumption

and use that for your metric for success when looking at acquisition.

Yann adds that as open-source intelligence (OSINT) is free and easy to access, most organisations use it extensively. But organisations must also consider the trust and reliability of sources. Yann explains that in a classical hierarchy, the highest level of trust comes from the intelligence you generate and receive from your close network and peers, and OSINT information is placed at the lowest level.

David recommends using trust models such as the Admiralty System or NATO System which classifies information from A to F for reliability and from 1 to 6 for credibility, particularly for new

It is also important that the tool you select works well with frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK. David shared that MITRE is the most used framework to organise the analysis process.

Customers are identifying their crown jewels and mapping to MITRE to understand which adversaries might target them, the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to concentrate on, and what actions to take.

sources that surface during times of crises or outbreaks. Applying this scale to threat intel helps to determine what to do with the data and reduces false positives and noise generated from nonvalidated and unconfirmed data.

2

Determine who will acquire the data.

In response to the next poll question, 25% of respondents said all groups have access to all threat intelligence sources. David explained that while it may be good to provide access to a broad audience, it is probably even better to have one team responsible for acquiring and analyzing threat reports and only delivering information that is actionable. Not every stakeholder needs every level of intelligence.

Using the report on the Ryuk ransomware from the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) as an example, Yann explained that to do this you need to determine how the same report will impact and be used by various teams across the organisation. Different teams may use different aspects of the same report in different ways to achieve their desired outcomes, for example modifying policy (strategic), launching hunting campaigns (operational) or disseminating technical indicators (tactical). A threat report that is in PDF format requires a lot of work to translate the information it contains into actionable data for different sets of users, which is why it is important to have a dedicated team acquire the data.

3

Structure the data for analysis.

Yann explained that the three steps for analysis include: understanding the context of report, the relevance of the report, and relating the report to any prior reports, intelligence and incidents. This process allows you to contextualise and prioritise intelligence but requires that the data be structured uniformly. Threat data comes in various formats (e.g., STIX, MITRE ATT&CK techniques, news articles, blogs, tweets, security industry reports, indicators of compromise (IoCs) from threat feeds,

5 GitHub repositories, Yara rules and Snort signatures.) and needs to be normalised.

The information you gather, in the Ryuk report for example, is expressed with their own vocabulary and translating it into a machine-readable format is necessary to link it to other related reports and sources of information.

David adds that it isn’t just about format. The volume of information across the threat intel landscape is high and different groups use different names to refer to the same thing.

Normalisation compensates for this and enables you to aggregate and organise information quickly. Structuring data so that you can prioritise is critical for triage and ensures you are focusing on the threats that matter most.

4

Use tools to help with analysis.

Yann explains that the tools you use need to support your desired outcome. According to the poll, 67% of attendees using technical ingestion (SIEM) which indicates that desired outcomes are more technical. And 15% are still handling the acquisition and analysis process manually. This is quite a challenge, particularly during a big event.

A threat intelligence platform (TIP) does a good job of extracting context and can help you use the information in various ways for different use cases (e.g., alert triage, threat hunting, spear phishing, incident response) and to support different outcomes.

Select the right tools to help make data actionable.

Analysis enables prioritisation so you can determine the appropriate actions to take. There are a variety of tools to help make threat reports and other elements of your threat intelligence program actionable and achieve desired outcomes at the strategic level (executive reporting), operational level (changes in security posture) and tactical level (updating rules and signatures).

In the final polling question, 45% of respondents said they are using a TIP to make the data actionable for detection and protection, but few are using a TIP for forensics. Yann and David agree this is a missed opportunity and a capability teams should explore as their capabilities continue to mature. From a forensics standpoint, MITRE is an important tool to enable analysis of past incidents so organisations can learn and improve.

In closing, these two security experts recommend that before you start thinking about threat intelligence sources, analysis and actions, you need to understand the desired outcomes and deliverables for each of your constituents. It’s a journey that typically starts at the tactical level and, with maturity, evolves to include operational and strategic intelligence to deliver additional value. When shared the right way with each part of the organisation, key stakeholders will see threat intelligence for the business enabler that it is, and the threat intelligence program will gain support and the budget to grow.

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INTERVIEW

THE POWER OF ONE IFS HAS RECENTLY LAUNCHED IFS CLOUD, A SINGLE TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM THAT CONNECTS ALL ITS PRODUCTS. DARREN ROOS, CEO OF IFS, EXPLAINS HOW THIS NEW PLATFORM BRINGS CHOICE, SIMPLICITY, AND INNOVATION TO ENTERPRISES.

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ow are you helping your customers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives?

The path to digital transformation is not a simple one. Most businesses are complex and have intricate value chains, so few organisations succeed, and even fewer vendors provide the tools to enable it truly. At IFS, our single most important goal is to deliver value to our customers, and we want to provide a clear path for them to evolve to new business models, compete and win.

Customers have told me that their main goals are to drive efficiency, control costs, and develop better products and services.

We know that to achieve this, the cloud is a prerequisite. Digital innovations need to be easily consumable and embedded into daily business operations, which is why I am confident that IFS will succeed where others have not.

Globally, while a lot of companies have been prioritising digital transformation, many of them however haven’t actually done it the right way. Companies are prioritising and increasing capital allocation towards digital transformation.

But most businesses are complex and intricate value chains, which means you can’t simply flick a switch.

Every single customer I talked to is thinking about how they rationalise their estate.

But doing so right is fundamental to avoiding the mistakes too many companies have endured, such as multiple upgrades, complex integrations between your systems, and an inability to leverage innovation throughout your business.

IFS is committed to challenging that, challenging that reality, and doing better.

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What makes IFS Cloud unique?

The launch of IFS Cloud is the result of us doubling our R&D investments over the last two years’ and termed 2021 as a ‘turning point’ for IFS. We set about leveraging the assets we had, made some acquisitions, and did a truckload of engineering. And today, we have a single solution. We have taken away all the complexity, that very fragmented landscape.

At IFS, our single most important goal is to deliver value to our customers, and we want to provide a clear path for them to evolve to new business models, compete and win. IFS Cloud is unique and delivers on customer-centricity and experience as well as capabilities.

Instead of applications becoming more harmonised and easier to deploy, they’ve become more fragmented and more complex to deploy. And all that complexity sits with the customer. IFS Cloud delivers the full breadth of capability across all our solutions as a single harmonised application. I use the word harmonised, not integrated, because it’s not integrated. It is one application. It is one solution set. Our competitors who have made acquisitions claim to be integrated, but when you look,

there are multiple databases, multiple data models, and they are tying them together in the background to make them work.

That is not the case with IFS. We listened to our customers, and they told us they don’t want to be prescribed whether they should deploy on-premise or in the cloud. Now, let’s not be confused – we are very clear in our messaging that customers should deploy in the cloud whenever possible. That is where they will get the most value in the shortest amount of time at the lowest total cost of ownership.

However, because of the sophistication and complexity of the customers we deal with, some want the flexibility to be able to deploy on-premise or deploy in a private cloud.

Unlike many of our competitors, where if you deploy on-premise, that’s it, you’re on-prem, and you can’t necessarily move because there isn’t functional parity. That is completely different with IFS. For us, it is the same application that we have tooled to provide complete flexibility.

You said IFS Cloud would enable your customers to deliver on their moments of service. Can you please explain what the moment of service is?

Every technology company thinks their technology is the center of the universe. And that is fundamentally flawed.

Technology is never the center of the universe for the end-user. The customer experience and the moments of service for the end user’s customer is the center of the universe for the end-user. We are explicitly trying to come at this from a nontechnology perspective.

With the moment of service, what we are helping them to do is to frame that problem in the perspective of their customer. So, what is the moment of service that you are trying to create for your customer? If the company can understand what the moment of service is and then orchestrate assets, customers, and people to deliver an outstanding moment of service, that is when the magic happens.

There is no question that companies that can do that will win more often, get more repeat business, and be more profitable. What does matter is where you focus, and the focus has got to be the moments of service.

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VIEWPOINT

TIME TO BRING IN THE THREAT HUNTERS AS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE POST PANDEMIC RAISE THE BUSINESS VALUE OF AN ORGANISATION BEING ONLINE AND AVAILABLE, LARGE ENTERPRISES AND CRITICAL BUSINESSES NEED TO CONSIDER THE SERVICES OF ADVANCED THREAT HUNTERS, EXPLAINS ROHIT BHARGAVA, PRACTICE HEAD - CLOUD & SECURITY FROM CLOUD BOX TECHNOLOGIES.

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s organisations pivot around digital transformation and make the organisation increasingly agile to combat post pandemic challenges, the stakes around the impact of any type of cybersecurity attack are continuously spiraling upwards. Whether it is ransomware or damage to industrial assets or business interruption or loss of data integrity, market leaders in 34

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any industry cannot afford to see their business impacted in any way.

With threat actors continuously innovating their modus operandi, and their movements inside organisations, there is a need for enterprises and mission critical organisations, which are usually the targets for advanced threat actors, to look beyond conventional tools.

One possibility is to use a skilled human approach to track threat actor movements inside an organisation’s

networks and look for anomalies not picked up by day-to-day tools and alerts.

Some sources indicate that over 50% of breaches are undetected by existing cyber security defense tools.

Existing defensive cybersecurity tools are like a camera pointed at the door that is triggered by the definition of a known enemy. And what if the enemy does not match the definition of a known enemy? The camera will not flash!

Today’s modern threat actors leverage multi-stage, delayed detection techniques, avoiding detection for weeks and months. And the process of detecting such delayed penetration techniques is through proactive cyber security activities. Proactive cybersecurity detects, isolates, remediates, threats which defensive cyber security tools have missed or wrongly identified as non-threatening.

A key part of proactive cyber security is threat hunting, which is the process of searching through networks and data logs to detect and respond to threats that deviate from traditional rules and signature-based controls.

Threat hunting is therefore a proactive approach towards threat detection, isolation and remediation.

Threat hunting is executed by threat hunters, who are typically highly skilled cyber security professionals who proactively find cybersecurity threats and neutralise them before they compromise an organisation. This is a much newer extension of the security analyst’s job role and is meant to identify and neutralise advanced threats that have evaded a security operation center’s standard detection routine.

The threat hunter presumes a breach has already occurred and a threat actor exists, is hidden, but can be detected by looking for traces of their covert activity.

The threat hunter separates out the unusual from the usual, by removing the everyday noise of the organisation’s user, network, application, and data activity.

They are in search for an as-yet unknown but presumed to exist somewhere activity of an existing but hidden threat actor.

The key success factor here is to detect and neutralise threat actors operating in an organisation’s network before they can execute their operations.

Threat hunting combines data from an advanced security solution with analytical and technical skills of a security professional or a team of threat hunting professionals. They scan data from a suitable solution and look for signs of compromise, lateral movement trails, and artifacts of threat actor activity.

challenges is a good start and can pave early returns and benefits.

While there is continuous innovation around automation of cyber security solutions to reduce the workload on security professionals, the same innovation is underway with threat actors as well. Adding the element of human skills through internal or outsourced threat hunting can help to isolate insider attacks and highly targeted attacks.

Digital forensics and incident response tools on the other hand act in a post facto manner. They come into play for an organisation only after an incident has been detected. Penetration testing and vulnerability assessment also act in an abstract manner, without taking into consideration the existing real-life condition of the end customer.

The basis of advanced threat hunting is when a threat hunters scans indicator of compromise to look for disjointed clues of threat actor activity. This precludes that the various cyber security solutions have raised an optimum level of alerts and the analyst is not swamped by an ocean of false alerts.

The existing cyber security solutions of an organisation such as endpoint detection and response must be efficient and effective. Threat hunting is not a substitute for standard cyber security solution that must do their job and limit the ocean of false positives.

Detecting advanced threats is the most challenging of all cyber security tasks. The barriers for this role are enhanced if the organisation has limited skill set and resources, is faced with a deluge of daily false positives, has a set of cyber security solutions that are not set up optimally, and has not established organisation wide security policies to automate deviations and alerts.

Finding a suitable and skilled security partner to manage these operational

Requirements for advanced threat hunting • Visibility into the network, data from end points, system and event logs, user behavior data, encrypted traffic, denied connections, peripheral device activity, unmanaged end points, IoT devices, mobile devices, running services.

• Tools that can provide search, contextualise the data, reduce the amount of manual work to scan logs.

• Confidence in the various cyber security solutions deployed to consolidate sufficient data and remove excessive false positives.

• There must a working hypothesis for the searches and a basis for verification of an assumption. Example, has a recently joined employee within X days accessed a data folder ABC? Which activity around data folder DEF exceeded N times above normal for an employee of Y years of employment?

• Access to public and open-source feeds of threat intelligence or alternatives such as SANS Institute, Mitre ATT&CK framework, and others.

• Understanding of an organisation’s workflows, where it keeps its crown jewels or core data, which activities could mask threat actor activities?

• Which activities create large amount of user and network activity that would deviate from the normal baseline such as creating a department, merger of an entity, activation of assets.

• If threat hunting is a scheduled activity and not round the clock, due to limited resources, then it may not be effective, and it may be more useful to outsource this activity to a competent security partner.

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VIEWPOINT

A RECIPE FOR GROWTH PAUL WRIGHT, MANAGING DIRECTOR UK, FR, ME & TURKEY AT APPSFLYER, WRITES ABOUT MOBILE BANKING USER ACQUISITION STRATEGIES TO ACCELERATE RECOVERY OF UAE BANKS IN 2021

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s the UAE emerges from what looks to have been the peak of the pandemic, analysts have started to make predictions about the recovery of the country’s banking sector.

While the UAE economy is projected to achieve 2.5% real GDP growth this year, in dollar terms, we’re only expected to see 2019 GDP levels by 2023. For this reason, rating agency Standard & Poor’s has stated that the recovery of the banking sector will be ‘gradual’. This sentiment is echoed by Redmond Ramsdale, Head of Middle East Bank Ratings at Fitch who expects the general business and operating environment for banks to remain as challenging in 2021 as in 2020.

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Against this backdrop, it is imperative that UAE banks find ways to identify and capitalise on every opportunity. And they won’t have to look far for inspiration — according to a recent article which cited Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) analysts, 2020 was not a terrible year for Saudi banks and many saw strong loan growth driven largely by the consumer and credit card segment. Retail banks in the UAE could accelerate their recovery by growing their base of customers who are now more inclined than ever towards digital payments, contactless cards, and mobile banking.

It’s clear a number of UAE banks recognise the importance of going digital, and the transformation of the

sector has been truly impressive. Today, most traditional banks in the UAE offer slick digital banking options and with the latest announcement about the upcoming launch of Zand — the UAE’s first digital bank — it is probably a matter of time before most, if not all, banks go ‘digital-first’. This however makes it a challenging segment to stand out in.

But in the rush to avoid FOMO, banks can run the risk of failing to create compelling digital offerings that really stand out — ultimately, it is not the volume and variety of digital services, but rather the quality of digital experiences that customers are most concerned with. The reason every bank would like to believe it is a ‘FinTech’

is because customers today have the same expectations of their financial institutions as they do of tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Google. In short, they want fast and intuitive user experiences.

And just as they have in so many other industries, mobile apps are arguably the cornerstone in this digital transformation of the banking customer experience.

As demand from consumers, with more mobile accessibility and expectations for top notch services on-the-go have grown, financial institutions, both traditional and digital-first, are in a race to remain relevant. Mobile finance, including a suite of activities like banking, investing, trading, and transferring peerto-peer, has become a lot more personal, and at user’s fingertips 24/7. Beyond accessing banking services, these apps are also a key channel through which customers communicate with their service providers.

But for all the money that banks invest into creating feature-rich apps that are secure and easy to use, they’re only going to see a return on investment, if they can get their users to utilise these apps. So, with mobile user acquisition being critically important to UAE banks in the current economic climate, let’s set a roadmap for success by outlining best practices.

Personalise, personalise, personalise Personalisation of your user’s experience should be a priority,

MOBILE FINANCE, INCLUDING A SUITE OF ACTIVITIES LIKE BANKING, INVESTING, TRADING, AND TRANSFERRING PEER-TOPEER, HAS BECOME A LOT MORE PERSONAL, AND AT USER’S FINGERTIPS 24/7.

BEYOND ACCESSING BANKING SERVICES, THESE APPS ARE ALSO A KEY CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH CUSTOMERS COMMUNICATE WITH THEIR SERVICE PROVIDERS. both inside and outside of the app.

Emphasise a contextually relevant onboarding process that encourages users to register for an account and set their own preferences. You can also use granular in-app event data to guide users to specific functions within the app, or suggest related products or services for greater upsell or even affiliate revenue opportunities.

Keep messaging simple While personalisation keeps ongoing mobile financial management relevant, it is also important not to overcomplicate the messaging. Given the diverse range of functions available within a single finance app, or across a related family of apps, be intentional about using targeted and simple messages for maximum effect.

The web-mobile combination Despite the continued growth of mobile finance, users still rely on desktop websites and apps for their digital finance needs. Particularly for banks

that embrace the mobile-first approach, it is important to create a sustainable web presence to use as a strategic touchpoint, driving users to relevant, specific functionality where they’re most likely to convert.

Segmentation sweet spots: Scale vs specific When utilising advertising platforms such as Facebook and Google to acquire users, it’s worth keeping target audiences broad enough to have sufficient scale for machine learning, but specific enough to find the unique users you’re looking for. Bear in mind that this cap will change per platform and can also change over time.

Follow the funnel As a general rule, almost all marketing efforts, especially audience segmentation, follow the specific conversion funnel of the app, or suite of apps, given the diverse functionality offerings of mobile finance. However, beyond keeping the app experience relevant for, likely, existing web or offline users, following your funnel also improves the collaboration and communication across departments, leaving less room for confusion and duplication.

Customer adoption of a financial institution’s app is a vital step in digital marketing, as it enables banks to build a picture of the entire customer journey. Using data, it becomes possible to understand, model, and predict user behavior. This allows for profitable targeted marketing, as well as giving insight into how customers are interacting with a service. In turn, this enables financial institutions to efficiently cross-sell banking products to an audience that modelling shows will be receptive to it. This level of mobile measurement of users enhances the relationship between business and customer, increasing the ‘stickiness’ of mobile users. Done well, it can give banks a true competitive advantage and contribute to the all-important goal of attracting and retaining customers.

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VIEWPOINT

COLLABORATION OR CONFLICT?

DAVID NOËL, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, SOUTHERN EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA AT APPDYNAMICS, ON HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE IN THE IT PRESSURE COOKER

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hese are challenging times for IT departments the world over. Rapid digital transformation and soaring complexity have heaped extreme pressure on IT teams over the past year, and there is no end in sight.

As we move into the second year of the pandemic, business leaders will continue to look to their IT departments to deliver innovation and faultless digital experiences to customers and employees. And with digital transformation set to accelerate even further in 2021, the pressure on IT departments will only intensify.

Without doubt, IT departments have risen to the challenge of COVID-19 in a phenomenal way. Their skill and hard work have enabled businesses across all sectors to rapidly launch innovative new digital services to meet huge fluctuations in customer needs and to allow entire workforces to operate from home during the pandemic.

But behind the scenes, it’s a different story. More than a year of constant firefighting and extremely long hours is understandably now taking its toll. Research recently conducted

by AppDynamics amongst global technologists, including those from the UAE, (Agents of Transformation 2021: The Rise of Full-Stack Observability) found that many feel under immense pressure and are struggling to switch off from work.

This is an unfortunate, although not unsurprising, finding. Cracks would undoubtedly appear in any team, no matter how strong and united, when asked to operate under that level of pressure for such a long period of time. The difference for IT teams at the moment is that there is no time away to reflect or recharge, no 38

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natural break or end point in the distance to aim for. None of us know when the pandemic will pass and when the pressure will start to subside.

For IT leaders, it’s important to consider possible causes for any heightened conflict in the IT department, beyond the fact that people are simply overworked and exhausted. Not only do they have a duty to protect the wellbeing and mental health of their people, they also need every technologist to be operating to their full potential during this critical period. They can’t afford any distractions.

By understanding why more disputes are occurring within IT departments, leaders can find solutions and nip this issue in the bud before it impacts on engagement and productivity.

One possible source of contention that emerges from our research is the lack of accurate, real-time data that many IT teams have into technology performance across their IT estate. This means that technologists are having to base decisions on hunches and feelings, rather than cold, hard facts. In a high-pressure environment, it’s inevitable that this will lead to differences of opinion and heated exchanges if things don’t go to plan. As our research found, almost three quarters of UAE technologists (73%) stated that they cannot afford to rely on gut instinct with technology performance anymore — they need accurate data.

Rapid digital transformation and the acceleration of cloud computing initiatives have left technologists attempting to monitor and optimise an ever more dispersed patchwork of legacy, cloud and hybrid technologies, and all of which are continually presenting them with massive volumes of data. And it is this never-

ending data ‘noise’ which is becoming so overwhelming for technologists, because most currently don’t have adequate observability tools to effectively monitor their entire IT estate and identify performance issues quickly.

For all of the pressures and challenges they are facing, UAE technologists remain optimistic about the year ahead and as committed as ever to making a positive impact to their organisations. 80% say the next year feels like a defining moment for them professionally and a chance to shine.

Technologists also recognise the need to come together with people both within and outside the IT department to drive through digital transformation at speed.

But they no longer want to guess or spend hours trying to identify IT performance issues — it’s not only detrimental to customers and the business, it opens the door to conjecture and conflict in the IT department.

In fact, as many as 96% of UAE technologists stress that the ability to collaborate more effectively based on accurate technology performance data will be important in 2021 and 92% believe that they need to find ways to break down team silos will be important in order to succeed.

Business and IT leaders must take note.

If they are to meet their innovation goals and deliver world-class digital experiences for customers and employees, they should be doing all they can to make the IT department a harmonious and collaborative place.

EVENT

GETTING STARTED WITH INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION FINESSE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH ITS PARTNER AUTOMATION ANYWHERE, ORGANISED A SUCCESSFUL WEBINAR ON USING INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION TO BUILD DIGITAL ENTERPRISES. THE EVENT WAS POWERED BY CXO INSIGHT ME.

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ntelligent automation, which combines RPA with AI, is seen as the first step toward digital transformation in many enterprises as it helps to augment human labour with a virtual workforce. By executing repetitive and mundane tasks, enterprises can redeploy their workforce with improved skills and advanced productivity, which is now more important than ever.

The event kicked off with a presentation on RPA and AI by Bobby Thomas, delivery head of emerging technologies at Finesse, who spoke at length about the market drivers.

“The global pandemic has disrupted both internal and external business processes. At the same time, the role of technology is evolving at a faster pace, aiding in overcoming business challenges. The integration of RPA with machine learning can help in advancing the capabilities of software bots. Moreover, AI in RPA can aid in structuring unstructured data, enhancing business insights and improving data integrity,” he said.

He added that it has become essential to increase work agility in a highly competitive market and deliver better customer experience.

“During these difficult times, the only way we can move forward is to be as flexible and agile as possible.

The pandemic has had an adverse impact on front office and back-office operations, and we have to adopt intelligent automation to mitigate these challenges.”

This was followed by customer success stories of Zulekha Healthcare Group and Fuji Film Middle east.

Aliasgar Bohari, IT director of Zulekha Healthcare Group, gave a brief overview of the business challenges faced before the RPA implementation. “When patients book appointments, insurance eligibility needed to be checked at reception manually. This was a tedious and repetitive task. We have two hospitals and get around 2,000 appointments daily. We decided to implement RPA technology with our implementation partner, Finesse, in revenue cycle management. Now the whole process is automated, right from fetching appointment details to checking the insurance eligibility of each patient, even before they arrive the reception with the help of auto-triggered bots. With RPA, the task is performed error-free and data accuracy is very high, which is reflected in the operational efficiencies of our hospitals.”

Ryo Okabe, corporate manager at Fujifilm Middle East, shared the key lessons learned from the company’s automation journey.

He said processes in accounting and logistics were done manually before RPA, and it involved review, reconciliation and reporting of large volumes of data. “This was timeconsuming and prone to possible human errors. We integrated digital workers from Automation Anywhere with MS Dynamics and processes we automated included daily sales and profit report, bank balance report, downloading customer ledgers, etc.

We are using three unattended bots scheduled to run at predefined times for these processes and one bot was deployed to execute this process on demand. The efficiency and accuracy of various processes have increased, and now our employees focus on higher value work.”

Dinesh Chandra, regional VP of Automation Anywhere, gave the audience an overview of his company.

“We have been in business for more than 16 years, even before the term RPA was coined. We have gained a lot of expertise in automation, having deployed our more than 2.6 million bots in 4000 enterprises globally. We have built a user community that you can reach out to and gain knowledge.”

He went on to share the key findings from a CIO survey the vendor has done recently in the region, which revealed the need for accelerated automation. “We found out that IT and business leaders want to continue with digital transformation initiatives and upskill the workforce. And this is exactly what we do with our digital workforce platform. Many enterprises are struggling to automate their frontend and back-office processes because of siloes. We can help you build a truly digital enterprise by linking these processes, productivity tools to execute key business processes,” he said.

The event also featured a panel discussion on how to get automation right, attended by Shafique Ibrahim, chief digital information officer at Al Fardan Group and Khalid Jalal, senior group ICT manager of Garmco Bahrain.

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VIEWPOINT

SECURED BY DESIGN RENEE TARUN, DEPUTY CISO AND VP OF INFORMATION SECURITY AT FORTINET, ON THE KEY FUNDAMENTALS FOR AN EFFECTIVE SECURITY DESIGN

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s organisations continue to accelerate their digital innovation initiatives with an effective security design, new network edges are also introduced to their security infrastructure – from data centre, LAN, SASE and more. The network continues to expand and splinter the perimeter, allowing new attacks vectors to present opportunities for cyber criminals.

Many organisations have accumulated a wide variety of isolated security tools designed to monitor a specific function or protect one segment of the network in isolation.

Some of these new environments are essential solutions to urgent business needs, others are often over-trusted and fly under the radar. Given the rate of innovation, there is rarely enough time to make them part of a cohesive or comprehensive security strategy.

Cyber criminals are always searching for new ways to bypass security controls, infiltrate networks, and achieve their objectives. Their attacks have grown in sophistication, aiming to attack different network edges simultaneously to obscure their attack methods and identify the most easily exploited link in the security chain. Distributed networks that rely on traditionally isolated point products can’t see or defend against these threats. The clear challenge is that the disconnected and isolated security tools put in place to secure rapidly expanding and multiplying network edges don’t work together.

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fundamental principles and practices that every organisation needs to consider to get in front of and stay ahead of their current security challenges: • A unified security fabric is essential to establish and maintain control over every edge. It must be able to span the distributed and evolving network to detect threats, correlate data, and seamlessly enforce policy.

This isn’t about selecting a single vendor, rather about choosing the right vendors. Priority needs to be given to those vendors that leverage application programming interfaces (APIs) and common standards to support interoperability—especially those that allow policy decisions to be made outside of their solution.

• Deployed security solutions also need to have access to common datasets across all network edges, endpoints, and clouds, enriched with real-time global and community threat intelligence shared from every area of the organisation. This common intelligence framework enables holistic analyses of the state of security and performance, identifies emerging threats, and enables unified response across the organisation.

• An integrated security framework needs to support and enable advanced data analysis, combined with the ability to automatically create new protections across the full attack cycle when those analytics detect previously unknown threats. This system should also

be able to function autonomously within simpler environments and be linked to extended detection and response (XDR), security information and event management (SIEM), and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solutions for increasingly advanced network operations center (NOC) and security operations center (SOC) environments • This security fabric needs to be able to rapidly launch a coordinated threat response across the entire ecosystem the moment a threat is detected. This breaks the attack sequence before its objectives can be realised. Leveraging machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) tied to dynamically generated playbooks makes this possible without introducing slowdowns or human error.

• Because change is the only constant in today’s digital world, a security fabric needs to be dynamic, meaning that it must be designed to scale up and out as the network it is securing evolves and adapts. This requires deep integration between security and the network components and functions so organisations can continually innovate and expand networking and operations ecosystems without a lag in protections.

In order for organisations to have an effective security desion in today’s increasingly complex and ever-evolving network, security needs to be effective in providing broad visibility and control.

Reducing complexity is the first step in achieving that. Only then can advanced analytics, threat correlation, dynamic adaptability, and integrated threat response be possible. Those functions, combined with the ability to be deployed broadly, deep integration and convergence between security tools and between security and the network, and dynamic automation augmented

by AI, are the hallmarks of any security system capable of defending today’s dynamic networks and connected ecosystems.

VIEWPOINT

THE ROAD TO BUSINESS RECOVERY 3 JOHN A. WHEELER, SENIOR DIRECTOR ANALYST AT GARTNER, GIVES FOUR IRM MARKET INSIGHTS TO AID COVID-19 RECOVERY PLANS FOR BUSINESS.

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ntegrated risk management (IRM) technology is uniquely suited to address the myriad of risks arising from the current crisis and future COVID-19 recovery. IRM technology product leaders will need to develop IRM capabilities that are capable of addressing the IRM market insights outlined in this blog post.

The shift in the IRM buyers from IT leaders to business leaders is being driven by an increasing need to better understand the tactical view of technology risks in a strategic business context. The pandemic has intensified the need for organisations to rely on digital operations in order to not only remain competitive and grow but also to survive.

Product leaders should consider the following four market trends that will fuel demand for IRM solutions to aid in the COVID-19 business recovery. Each market insight is critical to consider for future product development in addition to market positioning and messaging activities.

IRM buying center continues shift from IT leaders to business leaders As more businesses are maturing their risk management practices, the buying center for IRM is shifting. This is primarily driven by an increasing need to better understand the tactical view of technology risks in a strategic business context. In 2019, Gartner saw a 36% increase in IRM client inquiry by business leaders. In addition, 73% of the 760 IRM client interactions in 2019 were business leader focused.

In particular, as our end-user clients look to digital transformation and innovation to emerge from the pandemic, business leaders such as the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer will need insight into IRM technology providers. This need for IRM is reflected in our most recent Gartner

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CEO Survey where CEOs identified risk management as one of their top priorities in 2020 & 2021 (see figure below).

In fact, risk management received the highest increase in response (39% more than 2019) from CEOs and senior business leaders.

The current crisis is operationallycentred Unlike the 2008-2009 Great Recession that was financially centered in its origin and resolution, the COVID-19 crisis is operationally-centred. This means that the economic impacts from this crisis are driven by a disruption of business operations due to health and safety-related closures. The financial stimulus provided by governments around the globe is merely a bridge to the other side of the crisis – business operations recovery. Once recovery begins, IRM will provide visibility of interconnected risks (i.e. third-party, digital, business continuity, health & safety, legal and ethics & compliance risks) businesses must navigate to succeed.

To effectively manage these risks, business leaders must have an understanding of the linkages between strategic business outcomes, operational processes and technology assets (see figure below). In addition, a growing need for visibility into the risks associated with products and services balanced by the necessary policies and procedures will lead business leaders away from legacy GRC technology. Legacy GRC technology focuses exclusively on policies and procedures in a siloed, departmental view. In the new digital

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business environment, the more balanced, integrated view of risk will be required for success.

Risk visibility is needed vertically through the enterprise, not just horizontally This risk visibility is needed both horizontally across the organisation (as seen in most enterprise risk management – ERM programs) and vertically down through the organization. A single view of risks at strategic and tactical levels will be needed to re-start business operations as the workforce slowly transitions back to full speed. Too often, boards of directors and senior business leaders will only consider an ERM view of risk without understanding how business operations factor into risk mitigation at the tactical execution layers. A greater understanding of how risk mitigation must be integrated throughout the business is essential for successful recovery efforts.

Digital transformation is rapidly becoming a “must have” for businesses Certain digital transformation is now a “must have” not only for future competitiveness and growth, but also for survival. The business world is now relying on digital operations to maintain business continuity in this crisis. This shift will not fade as we recover. It will remain as a new way of conducting business in a cost-optimised, more efficient environment.

As such, management of digital risks in an integrated way will become a top priority for businesses.

To this end, business leaders need more risk quantification and analytics to support their digital business decision making. No longer can they rely exclusively on qualitative measures of risk. A balanced view of both quantitative and qualitative risk measures is needed at both the tactical and strategic levels (see figure below). Targeted risk mitigation as part of digital optimization efforts requires a cost/benefit analysis to determine how much risk the organization is willing to tolerate. Strategic risk mitigation as part of a digital transformation initiative requires an ROI/IRR analysis to determine how risks will factor into the profitability of a product or service.

These are trying times for business leaders and their organizations. The only way through this crisis into recovery is to increase our degree of certainty in a highly uncertain world. That is what IRM is designed to help organisations do.

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VIEWPOINT

REIMAGINING THE PHYSICAL OFFICE JON HOWELL, SMART SPACES AND IOT LEAD EMEA AT ARUBA, A HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE COMPANY, ON THE OFFICES OF THE FUTURE AND ITS CONNECTIVITY NEEDS

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ike many others, I am ready to return to the office. Or at least, to have the option of returning to the office as we all move to the new hybrid working model that will see employees shifting between their homes and the office.

It’s interesting to consider what the physical office will look like under this model – for it surely needs to change. The way that we live, work and communicate, our priorities and expectations – they have all been irreversibly altered by the pandemic.

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So how can we expect our offices to remain the same and still meet our needs?

Designing an office that will work for our new reality and the near future will challenge organisations to rethink everything from their network infrastructure to physical architecture.

To help inspire and guide your planning, here are the top trends I’ve seen over the past few months.

Expect smaller – but better utilised – offices With office spaces sitting empty for

most of 2020, many organisations have recognised the opportunity to significantly downsize and save on real estate costs. I believe this will be a great thing for employees. Because at the same time, organisations are also transforming the way space is used, bringing it into better alignment with the way people will work postpandemic.

Instead of rows of desks and cubicles, walls are being torn down to create open, short-term collaboration spaces and meeting areas. While working from home has proven its

value, employees will be craving places to meet and work face-to-face after over a year of being apart – and organisations must be ready to meet this demand.

It’s not just about socialising either.

Organisations need to acknowledge that some employees, particularly younger ones and working parents, may still need to use the office as a focused work environment or because it facilitates more effective learning.

To this end, many organisations are also creating a number of single occupancy, soundproofed ‘pods’, which offer employees a private place to work, make phone calls or join remote colleagues on a video conference. All employees need to do is remember to book the space first – which brings me to the next trend.

Say goodbye to assigned spaces Future generations will no longer see the corner office as the pinnacle of success. With employee movement more fluid, the corner office (or desk) will belong to whoever books it first – and only for a certain amount of time.

The most efficient way for organisations to enable this will be via a digital solution, like an app – which will allow employees to see what space is available, reserve it for a set time and share its location with other meeting participants.

With space limited, this booking system is critical. Without it, organisations risk losing valuable time and affecting productivity as employees search fruitlessly for a place to work. The goal should be a system which allows employees to book a desk or meeting room before they even book a train ticket.

Once in the office, location data and Bluetooth functionality can also be integrated to guide employees and guests around the site unattended, further boosting efficiency and productivity.

Of course, implementing this technology is all very well but organisations must also remember

enable automated buildings that are fully cognizant of, and responsive to, the occupants and their environment.

that any new tool requires training.

Taking time to properly onboard employees will ensure things operate as intended – and that data is accurate. Issues like ‘ghost bookings’ – where an employee books a space but doesn’t show up – seem small, but at scale, can easily undermine the effectiveness of a system and add friction to the new hybrid workplace.

Buildings will become hyperaware As they look to digitally transform their businesses, organisations are introducing increasing numbers of IoT devices and sensors, which will provide vast amounts of data on building temperature, humidity, energy and resource consumption, air and fluid flow, occupancy, and more.

All this data has massive implications for operational costs and efficiency, as well as the employee experience. What time do the lights need to turn on? Are we overcooling rooms or heating them while windows are left open? Are employees using the collaboration spaces or do we need more work pods? Are we cleaning spaces that no one is going into? Organisations will soon have all the answers to help them better use their space and facilities, minimise waste and reduce costs.

In time, we will also see organisations leveraging this data to

The network of the future As we explore these trends, it’s clear that this reimagined office will require a far more wireless infrastructure to support the full range of devices, users and platforms.

Beyond this, it will also require a network that is AI-powered and predictive. This is the only way to ensure network performance, operational efficiency and that the unprecedented amounts of data are actually being used to deliver business value.

It’s also the only answer to the significant security risks inherent to any distributed network – where the sheer number of IoT and unmanaged user devices means that IT teams simply do not have the time or visibility required to manage risks manually. The increased emphasis on collaboration and socialisation will see more clients and guests visit the office as well, creating different levels of access that must be managed. An automated solution will both simplify visitor access and implement security policies that tightly manage what visitors can do and see while on the network.

This network also needs to be scalable, with the ability to respond as workplaces change due to evolving needs and behaviours, new technology, budgets, or because the data shows that they should.

In fact, enterprise networks are so mission critical that I believe these infrastructure investments aren’t about enabling hybrid workplaces at all. Instead, they are about creating agile, future-proofed organisations.

But all investments require funding.

With this in mind, the final part of Aruba’s hybrid workplace guide will explore how organisations can strategically maximise their budgets and build a network that enables the future of work – whatever it looks like.

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PRODUCTS

Logitech Combo Touch Logitech has announced that Logitech Combo Touch is now available for the new iPad Pro 11inch (3rd generation) and coming soon for iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation). Combo Touch is an incredibly versatile case with detachable keyboard and integrated trackpad that allows typing, viewing, sketching, and reading, all while keeping the iPad securely protected. The case features the firm’s largest, clickanywhere trackpad for a highly responsive and reliable trackpad experience. It connects to iPad via Smart Connector, eliminating the need for a separate battery, on/off switch or Bluetooth pairing.

Combo Touch supports four use modes: typing, viewing, sketching and reading. The protective case features an integrated kickstand that allows for adjustment of the iPad to just the right angle for viewing across a 50-degree range. Enjoy the full versatility of the iPad without having to remove it from its protective case with the

fully detachable keyboard. Simply detach for reading or sketching and then reattach it to type out emails.

The larger area trackpad design of Combo Touch allows for more space to perform your favorite Multi-Touch trackpad gestures in iPadOS like dragging, scrolling, switching between apps and more. These gestures allow you to quickly and precisely highlight spreadsheet cells in Numbers, drag multiple objects in Keynote, and edit and copy text in Pages and Notes.

Belkin Secure Holder Belkin International has introduced the Belkin Secure Holder, a convenient and secure way of attaching Apple’s new AirTag to customers’ important belongings.

AirTag is a small and lightweight accessory that taps into the global Find My network to enable iPhone users to keep track of and find items using Apple’s Find My app, all with privacy and security built in.

The Belkin Secure Holder is the newest addition to the company’s portfolio of accessories designed exclusively for Apple products. Available in two variations – with Key Ring or with Strap – the Belkin Secure Holder features an innovative twist-and-lock closure to keep AirTag safely secured in place, while raised edges help to protect against scratches. The Belkin Secure Holder is available in four colors – black, white, pink and blue – for a personalised look. Whether you’re attaching AirTag to car keys or a backpack, the Belkin Secure Holder ensures AirTag is locked in place and protected.

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HP Stitch S1000 printer

HP Inc. has announced the latest addition to its HP Stitch portfolio to help print service providers (PSPs) diversify their soft signage and interior décor offerings, as well as meet more challenging customer needs. The updated 126-inch HP Stitch S1000 is designed to offer high quality with greater versatility and smooth operation, said the firm.

The highly versatile new HP Stitch S1000 gives users the option to print directly to fabric or onto transfer paper, simplifying workflows without compromising on results – while 1200 native dpi printheads and HP’s Drop & Dry system ensure deep blacks, vivid colors and extreme resolution to deliver work of the highest-quality.

A newly incorporated contact heater offers enhanced

backlit saturation performance on direct-to-fabric jobs, meaning colors appear brighter and more vivid than ever before.

HP Stitch S1000 is designed to provide rapid turnaround production start-up times and speeds of up to 2370 ft²/ hr (220 m²/hr). Additionally, it also offers the possibility to double the through put on substrates of up to 63 inches (1.6m) with dual roll accessory.

The Smart Nozzle Compensation system and Optical Media Advance Sensor Plus work together to ensure reliable image quality while operating at pace. With an additional integrated aerosol and vapor extraction system, meeting tight deadlines has never been easier.

NEXANS XGIGASWITCH DICE Nexans Advanced Networking Solutions has launched LANactive Digital Ceiling XGigaSwitch DICE. The key features are 2x10 Gbps SFP+ uplinks; 4x MultiGigabits access ports for connection of bandwidth consuming applications; 4x Gigabit access ports for connecting further IP equipment and access ports are featured with PoE++ up to 90W. Nexans’ latest LANactive Digital Ceiling XGigaSwitch DICE, has innovative features including PoE and Gigabit access ports that enables the smooth roll out of the digital ceiling as an integral part of enterprise networking architectures,” explains Arafat Yousef, Managing Director – Middle East & Africa, Nexans Data Network Solutions.

LANactive DICE meets the current and future network requirements of smart buildings. It is scalable and facilitates upgrading of existing and new networking infrastructures.

Fibre based networks make the network future proof by meeting upcoming requirements of security, high bandwidth and energy savings. Fibre based networks also allow sustainable and cost-effective maintenance of the network.

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BLOG

THE SHIFTING SECURITY PARADIGM SUNIL PAUL, MD OF FINESSE, SAYS IT IS TIME TO RETHINK THE TRADITIONAL ‘WALLED CITY’ APPROACH TO NETWORK SECURITY AND MOVE TO A CYBERSECURITY MESH MODEL TO ENSURE THE SECURITY OF DIGITAL ASSETS.

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he COVID-19 crisis has redefined the way we work and socialise for the foreseeable future.

As employees thrive in pandemic induced work-from-anywhere (WFA) models, organisations are reconsidering their current security postures to factor in evolving threats this new norm brings in its wake. Global reports on this ever-evolving threat landscape warn of a record-breaking spike in identity thefts, security and data breaches, ransomware, malware, social engineering and phishing attacks, Business Email Compromise (BEC) frauds, DDoS attacks, and the list goes on. While the region’s upcoming premier cybersecurity event at the end of the month, GISEC 2021 will explore

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all the latest trends and technologies that will help mitigate these threats, one that businesses should pay serious heed to is ‘cybersecurity mesh’.

Businesses can effectively adapt and secure their vanishing perimeter with this technology innovation.

The idea of a traditional single defensible and impenetrable corporate perimeter no longer exists as workforces and assets increasingly become distributed.

Today, employees need access to the cloud and connected applications from multiple personal devices remotely and seamlessly. To effectively manage this perimeterless world, organisations must have a ‘cybersecurity mesh’ as an integral building block of their Zero Trust security architecture.

‘Cybersecurity mesh’, exactly as the picture that conjures up when you hear the word mesh, is implementing a micro-segmented secure perimeter around the identity of each person or access point rather than a single border around the whole organisational network. This ensures each individual asset residing outside the corporate perimeters are secure irrespective of what happens in the overall infrastructure. And only authorised personnel can access and use the data no matter which location it is at.

Protecting resources at the individual level and managing access from a centralised point of authority allow firms to have a more modular and responsive cybersecurity control in a distributed environment.

Before you think it is not applicable for all businesses and dismiss it as just another great-sounding buzzword, note that Gartner has identified cybersecurity mesh as one of the biggest trends of this year - one that will impact the future of cybersecurity. In fact, the research firm is convinced that it is the best and most practical approach for safely accessing any digital asset or cloud-located applications from any uncontrolled device residing anywhere in today’s distributed network architecture. It also predicts that by 2025 cybersecurity mesh will support more than 50 percent of Identity and Access Management (IAM) requests.

But as it is a horizontal approach, enterprises of all sizes should keep in mind that it is better to establish it right from the development and planning stage rather than appending it later. So as companies outline and cement their remote work policies now, they must include this top trend in their strategies if they want to guard their sensitive digital assets against the evolving sophisticated cyber adversaries.

We will see cybersecurity mesh being more defined and established during the course of this year. In the meantime, it is worth reaching out to your IT service providers today to understand more how it can help secure your distributed workforce and assets and ensure business continuity in virtual reality.

CYBER SECURITY FOR COMMUNITY

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