EC-MEA November 2021

Tech+ Championship

CIO 200 India

Women in cybersecurity

PA G E S 8 6 VOLUME O9 | ISSUE 01 NOVEMBER 2021 W W W. E C - M E A . C O M

ALCATEL-LUCENT ENTERPRISE

BUILDING A

HYBRID COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

MOUSSA ZAGHDOUD

Executive Vice-President Cloud Communications Business Division and Board Member Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

The vendor is accelerating consumption of communication and collaboration through its cloud services focussing on data integrity and security.

Power and protect life online. akamai.com/lifeonline

MANAGING DIRECTOR TUSHAR SAHOO TUSHAR@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM

Diversity and cybersecurity industry

EDITOR ARUN SHANKAR ARUN@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM CEO RONAK SAMANTARAY RONAK@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM

ARUN SHANKAR, EDITOR A R U N @ G E C M E D I A G R O U P. C O M

Every industry and every solution inside an industry is transforming. At this year’s Adipec 2021 in Abu Dhabi, industrial software vendors demonstrated how data traditionally collected by Scada HMI systems is now being digitally aggregated and displayed on software-controlled interfaces. Similarly, this year’s Dubai Air Show had a special conference focussed on the impact of digital technologies and 5G on the industry.

Disruptive transformation is also taking place across communication and collaboration. Moussa Zaghdoud, Board Member of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, explains that the vendor is using 22 datacentres in five continents, to provide its scalable cloud solutions. ALE is using WebRTC technology, which makes its solutions vendor agnostic and browser based.

ALE has relationships with hosting providers and less reliance on traditional hyper scalers and is using the European player OVH and IBM. One reason why ALE is using the European player OVH is related to its sovereign cloud stamp. Another important expectation from end customers of ALE’s cloud solutions is security and the confidentiality of their data.

In this month’s special report, we invite comments from career women executives on diversity in the cybersecurity industry. Points out Gartner’s Christie Struckman, women comprise just 28% of people who work in global IT organisations, and women of colour account for only 2%.

F5’s Kara Sprague, who is also a Board member at Girls Who Code, wants to help achieve gender parity in technology jobs. Kara got involved with Girls Who Code, when she was at McKinsey and their goal of achieving gender parity in technology jobs within this decade resonated with her.

For this, it is vital that all kids are given the opportunity to learn coding. The prototypical male working alone in the dark coder is not appealing to a large proportion of prospective coders. Kara recommends starting simple, and there are many free resources and offerings from different organisations online. She is encouraged by how some countries have adopted requirements in their core curriculums for kids to learn coding.

Anna Chung at Palo Alto Networks points out that working in cybersecurity demands a robust and diverse skill set. Cybersecurity is a young industry with potential and does not just need people who are maths, engineering and coding, she says.

ManageEngine’s Deepa Kuppuswamy explains that a team of diverse individuals are key to solve problems and tackle new challenges. Some of the traits of people who thrive in this profession are curiosity, persistence, risk and threat mindset, and willingness to take on a challenge.

Diversity can help to break the glass ceiling, says Giuliana Carullo at Tenable. Even the smallest community are diverse, the most obvious one, diversity of gender, with opinions and contributions that each member brings to the table. The subject of diversity in the technical workforce is a recognised challenge Turn these pages to read more including our on-site pictures of CIO 200 India and Tech Plus corporate championship. ë

GLOBAL HEAD, CONTENT AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES ANUSHREE DIXIT ANUSHREE@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM GROUP SALES HEAD RICHA S RICHA@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM EVENTS EXECUTIVE GURLEEN ROOPRAI GURLEEN@GECMDIAGROUP.COM JENNEFER LORRAINE MENDOZA JENNEFER@GECMDIAGROUP.COM SALES AND ADVERTISING RONAK SAMANTARAY RONAK@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM PH: + 971 555 120 490 PRODUCTION, CIRCULATION, SUBSCRIPTIONS INFO@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM DESIGNER AJAY ARYA ASSISTANT DESIGNER RAHUL ARYA DESIGNED BY

SUBSCRIPTIONS INFO@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM SOCIAL MARKETING & DIGITAL COMMUNICATION YASOBANT MISHRA YASOBANT@GECMEDIAGROUP.COM PRINTED BY Al Ghurair Printing & Publishing LLC. Masafi Compound, Satwa, P.O.Box: 5613, Dubai, UAE # 203 , 2nd Floor G2 Circular Building , Dubai Production City (IMPZ) Phone : +971 4 564 8684 31 FOXTAIL LAN, MONMOUTH JUNCTION, NJ - 08852 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PHONE NO: + 1 732 794 5918 A PUBLICATION LICENSED BY International Media Production Zone, Dubai, UAE @copyright 2013 Accent Infomedia. All rights reserved. while the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracyof all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

CONTENTS NOVEMBER 2021

VOLUME 09

ISSUE 02

50-57

SPECIAL REPORT

46-49 \ COVER STORY

BUILDING A HYBRID COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION STRATEGY

DIVERSITY DRIVING POSITIVE GAINS CHRISTIE STRUCKMAN, GARTNER Building an inclusive workplace in the technology industry KARA SPRAGUE, BIG-IP AND GIRLS WHO CODE Goal is to achieve gender parity in technology jobs ANNA CHUNG, PALO ALTO NETWORKS Cybersecurity demands robust and diverse skill set DEEPA KUPPUSWAMY, MANAGEENGINE Diverse individuals key for problems, new challenges GIULIANA CARULLO, TENABLE Diversity should be encouraged to break the glass ceiling

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EDITOR’S PAGE 30-34

EVENTS 35-42

CHANNEL

43-44

CLOUD

13-18 EVENTS

58-62

Toshiba, Kioxia, GEC Tech+ Olympics salute the spirit of sportsmanship

70-73

20-29 EVENTS

INNOVATION GUEST COLUMN

The World CIO 200 India in-person event, recognises top CIOs, stages panel discussions

HAIFA KETITI, PROOFPOINT Role requires problem solving, communication, adaptive learning LAYALE HACHEM, BEYONDTRUST Acceleration or inhibition due to gender will soon vanish MOR LEVI, CYBEREASON Investigating threats and managing amazing people NOURAH ALZAHRANI, THREATQUOTIENT Equal access, fair treatment drives higher job acceptance RASHA RAJEH, INFOBLOX Cybersecurity still has perception dilemma for women SHAUNTINEZ JAKAB, VIRSEC Evangelist for deterministic approach to cyber protection SOUMYA PRAJNA, HELP AG Diversity brings new voices, perspectives to cybersecurity

07 VIEWPOINT Threat actors will target space travel, 5G, reinvent ransomware

09 VIEWPOINT 2022 may see game of ransomware thrones

10 VIEWPOINT End users must protect their data in the cloud

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THREAT ACTORS WILL TARGET SPACE TRAVEL, 5G, REINVENT RANSOMWARE 2022 trends include reinvented ransomware, maturing supply chain attacks, death of cyber insurance, connectivity free zones, talent crunch and more.

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The seeds of rushed implementation of remote working and digital transformation bore fruit in the form of once-in-a-decade breaches like SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline and others that seemed to occur monthly. Looking ahead helps us anticipate where cyber threat actors will undoubtedly head as they look to take advantage of this paradigm shift. These projections are based on shifts in technology, threat actor habits, culture, and decades of combined experience.

Top cybersecurity trends in 2022 include reinvented ransomware, maturing supply chain attacks, death of cyber insurance, connectivity free zones, Cybersecurity Talent Resources and more.

MOREY HABER,

Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust.

ransomware operators will decrypt victim assets over time, based on agreed upon payout terms.

PREDICTION #5: SUPPLY CHAIN KINKS

Taking advantage of the huge wave of space tourism, expect phishing attacks and faux websites to crop up across social media and the Internet.

Supply chain attacks will further mature in 2022, expand in scope, and increase in sophistication. Expect far more third-party solutions and common development practices to be targeted. Organisations need to include third party supply chain breaches in their incident response plans and plan for a public and private response just in case they become an inadvertent victim for a licensed solution.

PREDICTION #2: CYBERSECURITY TALENT RESOURCES

PREDICTION #6: CYBER INSURANCE TERMINATION

2022 will prove to be the most challenging year yet with regards to the ongoing cybersecurity talent crunch. Some drivers of this supply-demand imbalance include the accelerated adoption of hybrid cloud and digital transformation initiatives, post-pandemic projects ramping up, and budgets becoming available for spend. Security posture improvements will be at the top of the list of desired projects. The imbalance will cause salary spikes across the board for every level of IT security professional.

Expect a tsunami of cyber insurance cancellations and a mad scramble to obtain new coverage, potentially at much higher rates. To obtain coverage and ensure the best rates, organisations will need to demonstrate the proper cybersecurity hygiene demanded by cyber insurance underwriters. Failure to have agreed upon cybersecurity controls in place will also be a key argument for insurers to refuse paying out after an incident, or to terminate coverage.

PREDICTION #3: 5G IN EVERYTHING

PREDICTION #7: FREEDOM OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

PREDICTION #1: SPACE TRAVEL

Consumers and businesses can expect that newer devices will be cellularenabled, or cellular capable, to provide services outside of local area and Wi-Fi networks. This will allow connectivity using a subscription model and remove the barriers and troubleshooting required for connectivity on home or small business networks.

PREDICTION #4: RANSOMWARE REINVENTED Organisations should expect ransomware to become personalised and increasingly involve different types of assets, like IoT, as well as company insiders. Targeted disclosure of exfiltrated information may be perpetrated to specific buyers. We may even start to see more flexible terms of payment, as opposed to lump sum payouts. With instalment plans,

Social networks will be under increasing pressure to control the content posted by their users. This is also likely to result in broader powers for the authorities to trace and identify malicious sources.

Expect to see tighter controls on the content that is distributed via social platforms, reliable attestation for the source of the material, and potentially access to the data for authorities.

PREDICTION #8: SOFTLY, SOFTLY Next year will see the average time from intrusion to detection grow, giving attackers more time to perform reconnaissance and wreak havoc on systems. Expect a lot of careful hackers to find their way into systems and establish long-term residences there. ë

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2022 MAY SEE GAME OF RANSOMWARE THRONES

Ransomware has generated billions of dollars and it is only a matter of time before those who believe they are not getting their fair share become unhappy.

RAJ SAMANI,

B

ad actors have taken note of successful tactics from 2021, including those making headlines tied to ransomware, nation states, social media and the shifting reliance on a remote workforce. We expect them to pivot those into next years’ campaigns and grow in sophistication, wielding the potential to wreak more havoc across the globe.

#1 USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TARGETED ATTACKS While this approach is not new, it is relatively uncommon. After all, it does demand a level of research to hook the target into interactions and establishing fake profiles are more work than simply finding an open relay somewhere on the internet. That being said, the targeting of individuals has proven a very successful channel, and we predict the use of this vector could grow not only through espionage groups, but other threat actors looking to infiltrate organisations for their own criminal gain.

#2 NATION STATES TURN TO HACKERS FOR HIRE In 2022, we will see an increase in the blending of cybercrime and nationstate operations. In many cases, a start-up company is formed, and a web of front companies or existing technology companies are involved in operations that are directed and controlled by the countries’ intelligence ministries. The initial breach with tactics and tools could be similar as regular cybercrime operations, however it is important to monitor what is happening next and act fast — companies should audit their visibility and learn from tactics and operations conducted by actors targeting their sector.

#3 RISE OF SMALLER AFFILIATES The Ransomware-as-a-Service eco system has evolved with the use of affiliates, the middlemen and women that work with the developers for a share of the profits. However, for a long time, RaaS admins and developers were prioritised as the top targets, often neglecting the affiliates since they were perceived as less skilled. This, combined with the lack of disruptions in the RaaS ecosystem, will create an atmosphere where those lesserskilled affiliates can thrive and grow into very competent cybercriminals, eventually with a mind of their own.

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Fellow and Chief Scientist of the combined company, McAfee Enterprise and FireEye.

#4 GAME OF RANSOMWARE THRONES In 2022, these self-reliant cybercrime groups will shift the balance of power within the RaaS eco-kingdom from those who control the ransomware to those who control the victim’s networks. Ransomware has generated billions of dollars in recent years, and it is only a matter of time before some individuals who believe they are not getting their fair share become unhappy.

#5 CLOSE EYE ON API Recent statistics suggest that more than 80% of all internet traffic belongs to API-based services. 5G and IoT traffic between API services and apps will make them increasingly lucrative targets, causing unwanted exposure of information. The connected nature of APIs potentially also introduces additional risks to businesses as they become an entry vector for wider supply chain attacks. In most cases, attacks targeting APIs go undetected as they are generally considered as trusted paths and lack the same level of governance and security controls.

#6 HIJACKERS WILL TARGET APPLICATION CONTAINERS Containers have become the de facto platform of modern cloud applications. In a recent IBM survey, 64% of adopters expected to containerise over 50% of existing and new business applications over the next two years. However, the accelerated use of containers increases the attack surface for an organisation.

And while attacks against containers are not new, in 2022, we anticipate expanded exploitation on the orchestration layers, increasing use of malicious or backdoored images through insufficient vulnerability checks and increasing attacks targeting vulnerable applications. ë

VIEWPOINT

AUTOMATION IS THE SOLUTION FOR TIMELY PATCHING Automation is helpful when one considers volume of new vulnerabilities and where operating systems and applications from vendors are continually updated.

TAREK NAJA,

T

hose with their heads buried in the sand may be unaware that, parallel to the pandemic, the GCC suffered through one of the worst surges in cyberattacks in living memory.

And for those whose heads remain buried, the great economic opportunities of the region may pass them by as they try to recover from cyberattacks that could have been prevented.

One measurable source of denial is in patching. A recent report from Digital14, shows the extent of the challenges faced by UAE organisations in the subfield of vulnerability management. Some enterprises are running assets with unpatched vulnerabilities that were discovered five, and in some cases twenty, years ago.

As remote working is now likely to remain an integral part of corporate life, this implies a growing range of digital assets outside the control of IT. And we are not just talking about unvetted endpoints. Enterprise data now slithers its way through third-party clouds and networks of unknown pedigree. It is time to take a breath and rethink vulnerability management.

Let’s start with the obvious — today’s security teams have their hands full. And they are fully aware of the importance of timely, consistent patching. They realise that breaches are often caused by the lack of security. And patch releases are not the problem either. Security professionals can set their watches by them. No, the problem for under-resourced teams is volume.

According to data from X-Force Red, nearly 18,000 new vulnerabilities were found in 2020. At the time of writing this article, CVE Details reported more than 16,000 vulnerabilities have been uncovered in 2021. Among these discoveries is a daunting range of severities, commonalities, and complexities. Some may affect little-used assets in niche industries; others may be present in the products of major vendors. So how could the region’s under-resourced, overworked technology teams cope with all of this?

As with most problems in life, it starts with getting to know oneself. A comprehensive — that is to say, complete, accurate, and categorised — list of IT assets allows organisations to see what patches are needed where.

Nothing should be side-lined or underestimated. Anything digital or physical that is connected directly or indirectly to the IT estate is eligible for inventory.

But wait. Does the IT or security team control the patching process? If it is not the security team, they need to either take control or attach themselves closely to the responsible party. Notification of vulnerabilities means little without the ability to initiate action and verify execution.

Solution Architect, Middle East, Qualys.

According to data from X-Force Red, nearly

18,000 new vulnerabilities were found in 2020

If delegation of patching is the practice, then monitoring is vital.

The discovering party must take ownership of scheduling and implementation. If a fix is critical, stakeholders must be able to ensure it is actioned in good time. KPIs and SLAs are a good way to do this, depending on whether the actioning party is internal or a third-party contractor.

Now that patching has, theoretically, been tweaked and aligned, how about turbocharging it with some automation? Even an ideal patch workflow can still be labor-intensive, meaning we still have not solved the problem of overwhelmed technologists.

Modern automation tools are perfectly capable of prioritising patches based on severity, the existence of known exploits, deployment time, and other criteria. Where major vendors are involved, trusted patches can even be automatically applied on non-business critical assets.

Automation is exceptionally helpful when one considers the volume of new vulnerabilities that are found each year. Operating systems and applications from major vendors are continually updated. And in an age where digital experience is everything, corporate IT teams are bombarding their customers with enhancements. ë

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END USERS MUST PROTECT THEIR DATA IN THE CLOUD

Vendor encryption offered to customers is not enough and taking your own measures will let your business depend on your regulations.

ALEXEY PARFENTIEV,

G

artner expects that by 2022, 95% of cloud security breaches will be caused by users working with the cloud services. There are solutions which monitoring user activity with data in the cloud storage. Even though data is in the cloud and cannot be governed and limited by the rules of the corporate perimeter, the solution will keep an eye on access rights to confidential data configured by specialists within the settings.

SaaS vendor encryption offered to customers is not enough when it comes to data protection, as you have to rely on the vendor’s safety level, and when an attack affects the vendor, your data gets affected too. Taking your own encryption measures will let your business depend on your own established regulations.

One of the major problems is that nowadays IT cannot be centralised on-site, it has to lose the grip of control and branch outside the perimeter allowing a company to purchase multiple SaaS solutions. It is complicated to manage all settings of every SaaS solution an average organisation deploys, as an average company uses over 100 SaaS applications.

What is easy to use – is not necessarily safe to use, the quicker we access and share data, the less obstacles there are for everyone else to do it.

Solutions delivered via the cloud are coded and re-coded, updated all the time, no one can be sure that every further update does not omit a newly formed breach in security.

Also, settings do not get changed simultaneously. You cannot keep up with external settings alterations and tweak your own in accordance with them every time a slight change is made.

But that is what is needed to be done, there must be correct access privileges for those who can make changes in the settings, so that unnecessary changes are not made manually by anyone.

Remember to make sure that no corporate data stored in the cloud can be downloaded by a third party without authorisation. Pay attention whom you grant the access to, and do not send a link until you are sure that the content can be viewed and used by public. Otherwise, deny public access and indicate the users who are allowed to read the content.

To make your processes as safe as it can be in the cloud, make sure you’re aware of what cloud solutions and applications your company really needs, what data can be stored and monitored there, so that you be sure that your data does not leave your company’s perimeter in excess.

Proper privileged access management is essential when allowing access

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Head of Analytics and Business Strategy at SearchInform.

By 2022,

95% of cloud security breaches will be caused by users working with cloud services to SaaS applications. Segregation of Duties is an inevitable and helpful approach to secure information usage in SaaS applications. It is important not to mess up configurations.

The chosen cloud deployment models and the way of their usage should meet regulatory requirements, standards and frameworks.

SaaS applications are to be available only to assigned users and authorised devices. Services rendered via the Internet are developed on the basis of a number of infrastructures and platforms, the construction within them is heterogenous – and so their providers are, who are responsible for their own part of work there, who manage occurring issues within their purview. This makes SaaS information security half the provider’s responsibility and half the user’s. ë

VIEWPOINT

HELPING ENTERPRISES TAKE ADVANTAGE OF KUBERNETES

Application and development teams being asked to break down monolithic applications and rebuild as microservices-based applications, are under pressure.

E

arlier this year three quarters of CIOs named application modernisation as a top priority, but at the same time almost 48% of executives admitted it had been over a year since they had made improvements to their application portfolios. Why is there this perceived conflict between what they want to achieve and what they are actioning?

Too often it is the risk to business operations, combined with the cost of another in-place patch or upgrade, that is felt to be too high. On top of that, complex architectures and inconsistent approaches to creating, running, managing and protecting applications are holding development back.

This approach is not sustainable. IDC predicts that, by 2025, nearly two thirds of enterprises will be prolific software producers with code deployed daily, more than 90% of applications will be cloud native, and there will be 1.6 times more developers than today. And it is the developer who has become crucial, as they become more influential in broader IT and infrastructure decisions.

Also, it is containerisation that has been a game-changer for developers to create and deploy applications faster and at unprecedented scale. In fact, this use of containers is only going to grow – according to Gartner, by 2025, more than 80% of software vendors will offer their application software in container format, up from less than 10% today.

Kubernetes, an open-source platform for managing containerised workloads and services, is leading the charge. Currently, 86% of containerised applications are on Kubernetes.

But where are we today? Do enterprises fully understand the opportunity presented by Kubernetes? Where are the hurdles to adoption – and how can partners help enterprises take advantage?

Firstly, let’s start with why enterprises are modernising in this way.

Above and beyond everything else, this is about building new revenuegenerating customer experiences via applications – as the future of business differentiation and customer-facing services begins and ends with an organisation’s application portfolio.

Then, sitting alongside this, are the pressing needs to manage a growing volume of software vulnerabilities, and to drive competitive advantage from new innovations now being offered by the cloud.

With these points, however, lie immediate challenges. We are seeing application teams being asked to break down monolithic applications and rebuild as microservices-based applications, development teams under

OSSAMA ELDEEB,

Director, Partner Organisation, VMware, Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.

90%

More than of applications will be cloud native and there will be 1.6 times more developers than today pressure to deliver new features to customers faster, and enterprises facing outsized security risks from compromised containers and or applications.

At the heart of all of this is the issue of complexity – that of the modern applications themselves, and how they are often made up of multiple VMs, containers, and services, and run across a variety of heterogeneous architectures. The number one obstacle is that it is difficult to match the needs of applications to the right underlying infrastructure.

The challenge, and opportunity, lies in addressing this at both an application and infrastructure level – solving the developer experience and operator experience across clouds, while addressing the most common scenarios enterprises encounter in their efforts to modernise infrastructure and applications.

And the technology to do this is out there; we can now simplify operations of Kubernetes for multi-cloud, centralising management and governance for many clusters and teams across on-premises, public clouds and edge environments.

This is about democratising infrastructure; extending an enterprise ready Kubernetes operating model across organisations’ datacentres and public clouds so they can run and manage modernised workloads alongside existing software – a single platform for running all applications. ë

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Toshiba, Kioxia, GEC Tech+ Olympics salute the spirit of sportsmanship GEC Media Group successfully completed a month-long Tech+ Corporate Championship with the best teams and players. The first-ever corporate championship in Dubai has witnessed great passion and enthusiasm for sports at Gems Modern Academy. This championship has proved that age is no barrier, it is just a limitation you put on your mind. The zeal for sports made this first-ever corporate championship more memorable.

The motive of the championship is to focus on fitness and meet new indi-

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viduals from different companies and build relationships.

Speaking at the grand finale, Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group congratulated all the winners and thanked all the players who have participated in various sports and showed their passion and great sportsmanship. He also announced that GEC Media Group will have a comeback next year with more sports and fun activities for corporates.

The first-ever corporate championship supported businesses and

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employees to achieve a better work-life balance, boost productivity and company performance, foster health, fitness and happiness in the workplace, increase brand engagement and loyalty, raise company morale through team building, promote brands, and network with like-minded professionals.

However, all the participated teams and players appreciated the effort made by GEC Media Group for breaking all the odds and give a platform where they can participate with their colleagues.

Tech+ Corporate Championship was built with multiple games including Badminton Men Doubles, Badminton Mixed Doubles, Tennis-Doubles, Bowling – Individual, Bowling – Team, Table Tennis – Singles, Table Tennis – Mixed Double, Basketball, Volleyball, Football, Cricket, Tug of war, Athletic, Team Building, Fitness Challenge, and Golf.

The sponsors included Toshiba, KIOXIA, Dubai Eye 103.8, Prime Healthcare Group, Al Ain Farms, Brand Voize, ESM – East Sports Management, Business Transformation, Enterprise Channels MEA, International Group of Artificial Intelligence, Global CISO Forum, Global CIO Forum, Thapos, SportsPlus, and xtra sports.

The proud winners included Belhasa Group, Launch TECH, Wavelogix, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group, Kantar Middle East, Toshiba, A5 Advertising, Prompt Elevators, Marine Costa FC, Reckitt, SAP, Benny Sjoborg, Giles Crowther, Dental Studio, Randy Livingston, StorIT, RakBank, Zak Dubai, Gears Apparel, Saudi German Hospital – Dubai, Commerce Connect, GEMS Education, Green Method Enterprises, Exclusive Networks, Fortuna, BK Gulf, Pure Storage, ESM, and Swiftline.

The Tech+ Corporate Championship was organised as per the safety guidelines announced by the Emirates of Dubai.

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THE WINNERS

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#ChangeX

THE WORLD CIO 200

India in-person event, recognises top CIOs, stages panel discussions

Taking the first huge leap in the land of the Asian subcontinent, Global CIO Forum organised the World CIO 200 Summit – India Edition an in-person event at Hotel Leela Palace, New Delhi on 8th November 2021 amidst renowned luminaries and subject experts.

The event took place in the presence of guest of honour Vinit Goenka, who is also a Member of the Governing Council at CRIS, Dr Sandeep Marwah, Founder Noida Film City, President Marwah Studios, and Chancellor AAFT University and Manoj Kohli, Country Head of SoftBank India.

The World CIO 200 Summit – India Edition was also attended by the top CIOs of the country.

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GEC Media Group unveiled the Business Transformation Asia edition in India.

GEC Media Group also unveiled the Business Transformation Asia edition magazine on the side-lines of the World CIO 200 Summit – India edition.

The event partners of The World CIO 200 Summit were Infoblox, F5, Exclusive Networks, BMB, Laserfiche Veritas, Finesse and Arcon. The World CIO 200 Summit has four award categories including Legend CIO, Leader CIO, Master CIO, and Next-generation CIO. Track updates of our events through the latest World CIO 200 Summit images available in Flickr.

Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group.

Sundip Sibal Executive Director and President of International Affairs, GEC Media Group.

Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group and Sundip Sibal Executive Director and President of International Affairs, GEC Media Group started the event with their welcome note and extended gratitude to all the guests for attending the event in person.

Speaking at the event, Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group said, “As the fastest growing media, events and research company, GEC Media Group has always adopted the mantra of being innovative, transformative, and steadfast to the market. Our efforts, services, and offerings are aligned towards being the singular voice for the IT and business ecosystem. Today, we are extremely proud to be unveiling BT Asia during the World CIO 200 India edition, in a country that goes above and beyond when it comes to ‘Transformation’ from not only a technology but varied industry point of view as well. This is a crucial step towards further establishing our commitment to the region in terms of bringing the best of content and success stories of the continent.”

“The Asia Pacific is on a high growth radar as experts predict internet sectors in the region to hit $300 Billion by 2025, thereby increasing the drive for ‘digital connect’. The launch of Business Transformation Asia comes at the right time and aspires to be the VOICE of the continent where these digital-first and digital-only businesses are on the track to rewrite customer experience models,” said Sundip Sibal Executive Director and President of International Affairs, GEC Media Group.

The event also recognized leading CIOs in three categories – Legends, Leaders, Masters. l The winners of The World CIO 200 Summit – India edition Legend category include Alok Khanna, Abhishek Agarwal, Ajit Singh Nawale, Amrut Urkude, Anand Sinha, Anuroop Sundd, Bhaskar Rao, Dr Susil Kumar Meher, Dr Deepak Kalambkar, Golok Kumar Simli, Hegde Subbarao, Hilal Khan, Indranil Chatterjee, Krishnamurthy Rajesh, Lalit Trivedi, Nikhil Kumar Nigam, Rajeev Khade, Ramkumar Mohan, Sajith Chakkingal, Sanjay Singh Gahlod, Selestin Thomas, Shajy Thomas, Sunil Pandey, Sunil Sonare, and Yogesh Dadke. l The winners of The World CIO 200 Summit – India edition Master category include Amit Kumar, Dr Chitranjan Kesari, Gaurav Vij, and Yogesh Kumar. l The winners of The World CIO 200 Summit – India edition Leader category include Gaurav Vyas, Pradeep More, and Kishor Gojiya.

Shubhendu Parth, Group Editor, GEC Media Group concluded the event with the Vote of Thanks.

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Transformation through corporate wellness culture Ektaa Sibal is a globally renowned gifted energy healer, an International Meditation Expert and award-winning India’s number one Inner- self Transformation Specialist. She is also the National Wellbeing Advisor to Shipping Corporation of India – Ministry of Shipping Enterprise. She also works closely in the mental health and well-being space and is often invited by global brands to speak on mental and emotional well-being. During the event, she has conducted a short meditation session and brief about its benefits.

Ms. Ektaa Sibal, India’s No. 1 Inner-self Transformation Specialist.

How ESG will transform business The panel discussion on How ESG will Transform Business was chaired by Mr Prakash Kumar, CEO, Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy and former CEO of Goods and Service Tax Network. with panellists including Richard Rekhy, Board Member – KPMG Dubai and Former CEO, KPMG India and Dipankar Ghosh, Partner and Leader – Sustainability, Climate Change and ESG, Thinkthrough Consulting. The leaders highlighted environmental stewardship, social responsibility and persistent control are now the responsibility of the entire human race.

They also talked about the perils of climate change and how it is impacting our society. As a country and as corporate citizens, we must be careful about our SDG responsibilities.

Dipankar Ghosh, Partner and Leader Sustainability, Climate Change and ESG, Thinkthrough Consulting.

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Prakash Kumar, CEO, Wadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy and former CEO of Goods and Service Tax Network.

Richard Rekhy, Board Member of KPMG Dubai and Former CEO, KPMG India.

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Digital technologies in enabling business transformation The panel discussion was moderated by Arun Shankar, Editor of GEC Media Group with panellists including Hilal Khan, Vice-President, and Operating Head-IT, Honda Cars India, Dr Deepak Kalambkar, VP Infosec, Paygate India, Neeti Wahi, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer, Sterlite Power and Jai Mrug, CEO of M76 Analytics.

Shankar said that the role of digital technologies in enabling the transformation of business across industries such as manufacturing of automobiles, distribution of power, and its impact on various tools such as compliance and big data and analytics. He also raised questions including: l How do you see organisations reinventing themselves to keep pace with the socio-economic changes and to ensure their future growth? l In 2022 and ahead what technologies will be driving business transformation in your industries. l Is the concept of a well-integrated front office, middle office, back office, sufficient to measure the effectiveness of digital transformation?

Arun Shankar, Chief Editor, GEC Media Group.

Neeti Wahi, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer, Sterlite Power.

Dr Deepak Kalambkar, VP Infosec, Paygate India Private Limited.

Jai Mrug, CEO of M76 Analytics.

Hilal Khan, Vice-President, and Operating Head-IT, Honda Cars India Limited.

Transformation of the infrastructure sector Speaking at the event, Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Group Government Affairs Officer, Tata Sons, talked about the rapid transformation in the infrastructure and some major challenges faced by the country during the pandemic. He added from the technology point the prioritisation should be on prefabricating housing so that it can come in as a major element and peace to be able to plug Millions of homes you must build as a country to be able to convert our slums in the cities into residential areas.

Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Group Government Affairs Officer, Tata Sons Private Limited.

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The emergence of the transformational CIO Pramod Agarwal, CTO, Automation Anywhere chaired the panel discussion on Emergence of the Transformational CIO with leaders including Ramkumar Mohan, CIO, Air Works India Engineering Private Limited and Dr Sushil Kumar Meher, Head IT, AIIMS and discussed the evolving role of the CIO has experienced a drastic transformation to keep up with changing organisational cultures and expectations in today’s business landscape of digital transformation.

Pramod Agarwal, CTO, Automation Anywhere.

Dr Sushil Kumar Meher, Head IT, AIIMS.

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Ramkumar Mohan, CIO, Air Works India Engineering Private Limited.

Shubhendu Parth, Group Editor, GEC Media Group.

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THE WORLD CIO 200 SUMMIT

INDIA EDITION WINNERS 08th NOV, 2021

The Leela Palace, New Delhi

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Pradeep More, Schueco India Pvt Ltd

Dr.Deepak, Kalambkar, Safexpay

Ramkumar Mohan, Air Works India Engineering Pvt Ltd

Amit, Kumar, Pristine Group of Companies

KISHOR GOJIYA, CIMS Hospital Pvt. Ltd.

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Nikhil Kumar Nigam, Amity Education Group

Abhishek, Agarwal, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd

Sanjay Singh Gahlod, Oriental Rubber Industries Pvt Ltd

Alok Khanna, Executive Director

Hilal Khan, Honda Cars India Ltd.

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Lalit Trivedi, ITI Asset Management Limited

GAURAV VIJ, STAYCAY ABODE SOLUTIONS PVT LTD

Krishnamurthy Rajesh, ICRA Limited

Anand Sinha, OCS Group India

Yogesh Kumar, Tata Advanced Systems Limited

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Hegde Subbarao, Hosabale Agro Producer Company Limited ( HAPCL)

Shajy Thomas, Technicolor

Sunil Pandey, Institute of Technology & Science, Ghaziabad

Bhaskar Rao, Vasai Vikas Sahakari Bank Ltd.

Amrut, Urkude, Shubhalakshmi Polyesters Ltd

Dr Susil Kumar, Meher, All India Institute of Medical Sciences

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Artificial Intelligence to transform sports system globally Global CIO Forum in association with International Group of Artificial Intelligence - IGOAI organised a virtual summit at Bahrain International Conference for Artificial Intelligence in Sport on 2nd November 2021. The event focused on the use of artificial intelligence in sports which is becoming a talk in the town. Artificial intelligence belongs to technology that emulates human tasks, often using machine learning as the process to learn from data how to compete with these tasks.

Bahrain International Conference for Artificial Intelligence in sport virtual event was joined by leading leaders including Ahmed Saleh AlBalooshi, Philippe Blanchard, Esteban Granero Molina, Pedro Fernandes Mestriner, Nasser Artificial Intelligence and Dalal Buhumeida.

Highlights of the Bahrain International Conference for Artificial Intelligence in Sport event include the future of digital revenue in sports, artificial intelligence in sports, performance analysis and match prediction.

Speaking at the event, HH Shaikh Khalid delivered an opening remark said, “It is our great pleasure to participate with you in this conference which sheds light on one of the most important modern innovations.”

President of IGOAI, Dr Jassim Haji welcomed Under the Patronage HH Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa First Deputy President Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, President of the General Sports Authority, and President of Bahrain Olympic Committee, all the keynote speakers and attendees.

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Speaking at the event, Philippe Blanchard, Founder and CEO, Futurous said the industry is moving from statistics to predictions, from objective data to subjective data, mixing sports data with non-sports data, this can predict how many medals can be won country by country.

Esteban Granero Molina, CEO, Olocip highlighted artificial intelligence solution and said that the uncertainty will never disappear in sports, but we can reduce it, reduce the uncertainty every winter and summer, how players will make a difference in a new team, artificial intelligence can analyse the performance and make a prediction how they will play in a club.

Pedro Fernandes Mestriner, CEO and Co-Founder of Horizm talked about the future of digital revenue in sports and artificial intelligence support throughout the digital commercial lifecycle. He also highlighted that how can we monetise all the social media posts around the event and data can be captured in real-time and combined with historical data.

The world of sports is abundant in such proven elements, making it ideal for the use of artificial intelligence. The functions of artificial intelligence in sports have become a familiar sight in past few years. There are so numerous technologies used in sports these days. They are customised as per sports to fit user preferences.

Artificial intelligence is gradually being used more and more and adopted as technological advancements increase across verticals worldwide. Artificial intelligence brings with it great potential for improvement.

The organisation focuses on the scope of artificial intelligence to be used in sectors which are untapped like the judiciary. It can help discover, forecast, and mitigate future risks and challenges.

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Superhero theme dominates GEC Media’s annual awards night GEC Media Group successfully hosted the 8th edition of GEC Awards 2021 at L’Obelisque Ballroom, The Obelisk, Dubai on 17th October 2021. This year’s theme of the GEC Awards was Superhero. GEC Awards is the benchmark for outstanding performances across the Middle Eastern and African IT industry where leading players in the ICT domain will compete for the winning title.

Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group and Anushree Dixit, Global Head – Content and Strategic Alliances welcomed all the guests and thanked them for being a part of the GEC Awards 2021.

The deserving winners were chosen out of the enormous nominations in the top distributor, top resellers, innovative vendors, top project executive, top system integrator and top PR agency 2020.

The evening was fun-filled with various games and activities and was truly appreciated by the sportive attendees. GEC Awards 2021 presented the glitz and glamor to its 8th-year celebrations. One of the most coveted and prestigious titles in the IT industry in the MEA region, GEC Awards celebrated the milestones of the GCC ICT industry. Established in 2014, GEC Awards has organically grown into one of the benchmark events in the IT industry in recognising solutions and services that have stood the test of time.

The winners of Top Reseller Award include Cloud Box Technologies, Data Care LLC, Sulava Gulf, CDW and Raqmiyat.

The winners of Top System Integrator Award include Teksalah, AHAD Information Technology, BITS Secure IT Infrastructure, RNS Technology Services, Midis System Integration Group, Emitac Enter-

prise Solutions, Zero&One, BMB Group, Precedence Technologies, Maxtouch Computers LLC, iConnect IT Business Solutions, Finesse and Dimension Data Middle East LLC. The winners of Top Distributor Award include SecureNet, Trend Micro, ASBIS Middle East, emt Distribution, VAD Technologies, AmiViz, Malco Technologies LLC, Bulwark Technologies LLC, Logicom, StarLink, Ingram Micro, StorIT Distribution, Spire Solutions, Redington Gulf and Mindware.

The winners of Top Project Execution Award include Government of Sharjah – Department of eGovernment, AD police GHQ, Monitoring and Control Centre, Riyadh Municipality, SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services, SLC – Government of Sharjah, Dubai Police, Ernst and Young, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company, Al Tayer, Dubai Developments, DAMAC Properties, Zulekha Hospital, Tmrw, GARMCO, Flydubai and GEMS Dubai American Academy.

The winners of Top Vendor Winners include Paessler AG, Infinite Blue, Clari5, Jabra, Infoblox, Safe Security, LinkShadow, Genetec Inc, Arcon Tech solutions Private Limited, Logitech, Rittal- Middle East, TP-Link MEA, Appian, Epicor Software, Synology Inc, ServiceNow, Automation Anywhere, D-LINK, Kioxia, Aruba- A Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, Veeam, Juniper Networks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp, Commvault, Pure Storage, Riverbed and Dell Technologies.

The winner of Top Partner includes Spectrum Networks and the winner of Top Service Provider includes HelpAG.

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The World CIO 200 Summit completes East Africa edition The World CIO 200 Summit 2021 successfully completed East Africa- Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition on 7th October 2021 at the GCF Virtual Arena. Carrying forward its legacy of the past five years, this year, the roadshow is going to cover 36+ countries and provide a platform for 200+ exhibitors with 300+ engaging sessions. Over 4,000 C-Level executives will be recognised in the 2021 edition.

The event partners of The World CIO 200 Summit were Infoblox, F5, Exclusive Networks, BMB, Laserfiche Veritas, Finesse and Arcon. The World CIO 200 Summit has four award categories including Legend CIO, Leader CIO, Master CIO, and Next-generation CIO. The World CIO 200 Summit East Africa Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition was hosted by Anushree Dixit Global Head, Content and Strategic Alliances. Ronak Samantaray, CEO, GEC Media Group started the event with his welcome note.

During the event, there were five keynote speakers and one panel discussion. The event was followed by World CIO 200 awards. The event was streamed live from the virtual arena and on Vimeo also. Here are the highlights of the various speaker keynote presentations.

Bernard Roco, Head of ICT, Kenya Tea Packers discussed about Africa IT Transformation Outlook and said, “nothing prepared us for the pandemic looking in the past two years the entire global went through a hard reset. Who thought one day our airspaces could be shut because of the pandemic? The whole global supply chain systems faced extreme pressure. The Covid-19 pandemic has a brutal impact on each industry. No industry has been immune from the level of disruption that has come with Covid-19 pandemic.”

Vincent Nuwamanya, Enterprise Account Manager, Veritas Keynote talked about their company’s transformation outlook and said, “We do ensure that we provide business opportunity to organisations, we generally provide key and ensure that we give then ambition critical business services always. We also ensure all their data is protected and they can recover for any eventualities from ransomware. He added that they also help customers to satisfy legal and regulatory requirement related to their data.”

Khaled Ben Driss, CTO, Wevioo addressed a session Technology Outlook 2022 and said that the race to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic stimulated innovation and creativity across Africa, which road the continents potential towards acerating towards development.

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He added that he has participated in several IT projects to set up state of our digital platforms where local teams worked remotely on agile mode.

In e-government field many projects were carried out in record time with the participation of multiple ministries.

Andy Malone, MVP, MCT said that the coronavirus has a major impact on the way of doing business and the way we work now. Andy Malone highlighted some of those changes and impacts in his speech and said, “Products like Zoom, Microsoft team exploded and working in the cloud becomes a new normal and for companies you have hybrid solutions.”

Wissam AL Adany, Group CIO, GB Auto Group said, “From my point of view, I see the coming period is even more important because during pandemic everything was unclear. Most of the decision taking by corporates, government took everything until having a clear vision.

So many companies delayed investments until understanding the new work dynamics. Today most of the countries have started to recover from this period, it is very important to be ready that requires many changes in business dynamics, strategies and understand how to make proper transformation plan.”

The panel discussion was moderated by Arun Shankar, Editor of GEC Media Group with panelists including Samuel Amanor, CEO, BlueSPACE, Africa, Khalid Jalal, Senior Group ICT Manager of GARMCO and Munir Ahmad, Executive Director and CIO United Company of Pakistan on leadership in post pandemic – cross-border view.

The announced winners of The World CIO 200 Summit –East Africa- Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda edition include Ousman Mohammed, Traci Chanyalew, Kehulum Belayneh, Mekdes Mintesnot, Shimelis Legesse, Yitbarek Tesfaye, Mesfin Workneh, Kehulum Belayneh, Allan Zaramba, Fantahun Demeke, Tilahun Mulugeta, Tedla Kebede, Thomas Mwogi, Bernard Rono, Diptendu Ghosh, Peter Njuguna, Dennis Volemi, Bravine Otieno, Viren Bissoonauth, Doreen Wong, Abdool Kadell, Reza Motala, Navin Sumoreeah, Hari Ramsamy, Veekash Aukhojee, Hurree Nishan, Jailand Myandee, Avinash Nunkomar, Moonesh Suggun, Victor Tovela, Eduardo Morais, Eusébio Tauzene, Jose Barbosa, Emidio Chung, Cleiton Wilson, Henriques Manjate, Faustino Pioris, Bindu Mittal, Rohit Dhawan, Mashaka Chaula, Dakshit Pandya, Dishon Eseka, Carina Kabajunga, Peter Madafa, John Msocha, Sebastian Nkoha, Victoria Mbowe, Sebastien Stampfli, Kafeero Ibrahim, Tathy Muenkat, and Peter Kayondo.

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GCF, Software AG hold virtual summit on Enterprise Excellence Strategy On October 26, Global CIO Forum in association with Software AG hosted a virtual event on Enterprise Excellence Strategy to Operation Transform, Optimise and Control. Organisations need to continuously adapt to rapidly changing digital transformation trends and this demands a strategic business alignment. Software AG makes business transformation easy with its offerings like ARIS. Based on Software AG’s strategy to operation transform, optimise, and control, this virtual session guided how one can achieve process excellence goals with great strategies to manage IT project management.

Marc Vietor, General Manager ARIS and Alfabet Software AG, Osama Islam Group IT Director, Basamh Trading and Industrial Group, Fawaz Al Twaijry Head of IT Transformation Office, Tawuniya, and Lorans Al-huniti, Enterprise Innovation and Governance Architect, Arabian Centres were the speakers at the event.

The Enterprise Excellence Strategy to Operation, Transform, Optimize and Control virtual summit was moderated by Eric Roovers, Vice President, Head of Business Transformation EMEA Software AG. Marc Vietor, General Manager ARIS and Alfabet Software AG

Marc Vietor started by briefing on the process of digital transformation

and how enterprise management system is working to take the business forward. He also highlighted some key aspects including transform, optimise, and control. Vietor stressed that the process of digital transformation is continuous, and it needs the best management system to achieve success.

Osama Islam Group IT Director, Basamh Trading and Industrial Group

Osama Islam started by highlighting the digital backbone including digital process, digital journey, and digital business. He also briefed the system of innovation, a system of differentiation and systems of record.

Fawaz Al Twaijry Head of IT Transformation Office, Tawuniya

Fawaz Al Twaijry talked about how to ensure the best experience for customers in Saudi Arabia.

Marc Vietor, General Manager, ARIS and Alfabet Software AG, Osama Islam, Group IT Director, Basamh Trading and Industrial Group, Fawaz Al Twaijry, Head of IT Transformation Office, Tawuniya, Lorans Al-huniti, and Enterprise Innovation and Governance Architect addressed a panel discussion during the event.

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Global CIO Forum, ARCON organise virtual summit on managing information risk Global CIO Forum in association with ARCON organised a virtual summit on Managing Information Risk while Working Remotely on 30th September 2021. The event focused on some risk factors that may lead to business continuity risks, authorisation and authentication threats and unsanctioned remote access to IT infrastructure and much more.

A recent survey revealed, 74% CFOs believe some employees may decide to continue working remotely even when the pandemic comes to an end.

The virtual summit on managing information risk while working remotely was moderated by Arun Shankar, Editor, GEC Media Group with keynote speaker Anil Bhandari, Chief Mentor and Thought Leader, ARCON. While addressing the event, Chief Mentor and Thought Leader of ARCON, Anil Bhandari talked about the Covid-19 pandemic period and how every company has invested in 1000’s of laptops, VDIs, access

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licenses and many more and said, “all of us appreciate the fact that Covid-19 has kind of transformed the world in terms of digitalisation of business, trillion of dollars of investment is coming into digital business and especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Local companies are doing well here.”

Bhandari also highlighted on where we work today, conventional method, security of access information and machine learning user behaviour, end-point security where are we and where should we be.

The event moved further to fireside chat session and interesting questions including – do organisations struggle with password rotation at scale, is just in time a pain for IT support teams – that is high friction, more detail about ARCON’s SaaS offering, is zero-trust a new normal and what according to you will be a checklist for securing remote access.

The event was concluded with closing note by Arun Shankar and Anil Bhandari.

CHANNEL

Kodak S2000 Series Scanner.

Series Scanners combined with Emmedi’s 4Cheque application.

The Kodak S2000 Series is a family of compact, powerful, and easy to use network-wireless and USB-connected desktop scanners that offer a highly efficient solution for scanning small, fragile documents like cheques. 4Cheque is an innovative decoding interface built into the S2000 Scanners that can be easily integrated into banking applications, providing all the typical functionalities of a check scanner.

In today’s climate, which is characterised by the increasingly widespread demand for automated processes, the solution delivers optimal decoding results. It reads MICR, CMC7 and E13B and optical OCR-A, OCR-B, numerical and alphanumerical fonts as well as barcodes, which ensures that the data obtained is secure and consistent. The software has simplified the jobs of thousands of workers by optimising time and significantly reducing foot traffic between the front and back offices. The solution is available in 6 languages and is fully compatible with the most popular electronic banking systems in the world. In addition, the new legislation on dematerialisation allows 4Cheque to decode the code lines of bank cheques from any country in the world with extreme precision.

Kodak Alaris, Emmedi will jointly offer S2000 Series scanner and Emmedi 4Cheque application to banks Kodak Alaris announced it has signed a strategic partnership with Emmedi, an Italian company specialising in application development for the banking sector. The two companies will collaborate to offer banks a

packaged solution optimised for efficient, reliable and cost-effective check processing.

The solution delivers best-in-class decoding performance that is far superior to traditional cheque scanners. It features Kodak S2000

Forcepoint adds Titanium elite tier of channel partners to global partner programme Forcepoint, announced strategic investments to the company’s Global Partner Programme that will simplify how partners work with the company while creating significant new business and revenue growth pathways.

New enhancements to the Forcepoint Global Partner Programme include the creation of an elite tier of Titanium partners delivering the highest levels of technical skills and services. The company is also automating its support infrastructure and introducing a more efficient engagement model with broader incentives that make it easier to work with Forcepoint while enabling partners of all levels to deliver greater customer value.

Forcepoint views partners as essential to the company’s go-to-market strategy in securing today’s hybrid workplace. The company’s net new business has grown nearly 50% in the last year because of momentum

created by partners switching from legacy cybersecurity vendors to resell Forcepoint’s unique Data-first Secure Access Service Edge SASE platform, including many of the largest partners from Symantec and McAfee.

Data is the building block of today’s digitised economy but the opportunities for both innovation and malice around it are incalculable. Forcepoint leads the industry in Data-first SASE cybersecurity, enabling enterprise and government customers to add new cloud-first, hybrid-ready cybersecurity capabilities at the pace that suits their business requirements, not the vendor’s.

The expanded Forcepoint Partner Programme rewards partners that invest in jointly securing data wherever it is used, onpremises or in the cloud, for today’s remote workforces.

Forcepoint built the Global Partner

PARAG PATEL, Senior Vice President of Channel Sales for Forcepoint.

Programme on the guiding principles of simplicity, growth and partner-led services to ensure customers have the security expertise and support needed, when they need it.

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DVCOM appointed exclusive distributor for OneScreen, provider of collaboration and interactive solutions DVCOM Technology, a value-added distributor in the Middle East has recently been appointed as the exclusive distributor for OneScreen, a reputed global provider of collaboration and interactive solutions for the Middle East region. DVCOM currently represents some of the most dynamic ICT

vendors and solutions offerings in unified communications, interactive collaboration, networking, physical security, and audio-visual conferencing solutions.

The Partner Enablement Programme run by DVCOM continuously has equipped partners to run their business solely on DVCOM’s

Vendor portfolio and asserting brand presence in their respective regions through in-house training both online and offline.

DVCOM has well-established global connections that is focussed on developing lasting partnerships with its vendors and suppliers, the latest one being fostered with OneScreen.

OneScreen is one of the companies that is fully focussed on developing collaboration and interactivity-oriented solutions. The brand uses military-grade technology in its solutions for corporates.

Not just the hardware, OneScreen also develops its own AI based solutions and software. Their solutions come with the most powerful Android OS currently available in the market to enable users with the best-inclass technology available out there.

This year’s GITEX is also seeing increased focus on interactive and remote working solutions as more and more companies now expect and are more willing to invest in solutions that can ensure their remote interactions operate smoothly. This has rocketed the demand faced by a large-scale distributor like DVCOM and has also amplified the usage of digital tools like the ones developed by OneScreen to cater to the changing demands of an increasingly virtually operated business world.

Etisalat Services Holding’s Tamdeed Projects, StarLink sign alliance for automation, cyber, cloud StarLink and Tamdeed Projects, an Etisalat Services Holding company, part of Etisalat Group; have entered a strategic alliance to collaborate in the Intelligent Automation, Cyber and Cloud domains.

The two companies signed an MoU at Gitex 2021 and agrees to work together and leverage

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on each other’s vast experience in myriad areas of expertise. The focus will be to join efforts and offer best-of-breed solutions and services and play an integral role in enabling organisations thrive, become resilient and elevate their digital transformation journey to the next level with automation and artificial intelligence.

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The partnership is directed at having a holistic approach towards cybersecurity with Intelligence Automation, Cloud and Datacentre, provided from an array of cutting-edge solutions in the StarLink portfolio and capitalising on the training expertise and facilities along with services offerings.

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Injazat, Alpha Data to partner across cloud migration, cyber security, IT outsourcing, AI, DR Injazat, the UAE’s home-grown technology champion in Digital Transformation, Cloud, and Cyber Security, announced a strategic

partnership with Alpha Data, a leading system integrator in the Middle East, to enhance and extend digital solutions to their key existing

Injazat and Alpha Data will also partner across data management, analytics, data science solutions Injazat, announced a strategic partnership with Alpha Data, to enhance and extend digital solutions to their key existing clients in the healthcare, energy, defence, finance, education, and public sectors.

The MoU was signed by Ussama Dahabiyeh, Chief Executive Officer at Injazat, and Fayez Ibbini, Founder and CEO at Alpha Data, at the Gitex that is currently underway at Dubai World Trade Centre. Under the agreement,

clients in the healthcare, energy, defence, finance, education, and public sectors.

The MoU was signed by Ussama Dahabiyeh, Chief Executive Officer at Injazat, and Fayez Ibbini, Founder and CEO at Alpha Data, at the Gitex Technology week that is currently underway at Dubai World Trade Centre. Under the agreement, both parties will co-operate in exploring the possibility of supporting the client companies under their portfolio across several areas of data management, analytics, and data science solutions.

Areas of collaboration will include cloud migration, cyber security services, managed IT outsourcing services, managed application services, artificial intelligence and data automation, data centre managed services and DR migration.

both parties will co-operate in exploring the possibility of supporting the client companies under their portfolio across several areas of data management, analytics, and data science solutions. Areas of collaboration will include cloud migration, cyber security services, managed IT outsourcing services, managed application services, artificial intelligence and data automation, data centre managed services and DR migration.

The partnership is indicative of the increasing need for government entities and businesses to expand the scope and quality of digital services and keep pace with emerging technologies.

Through the collaboration both Injazat and Alpha Data clients will benefit from improved efficiency of service provision, leveraging new digital delivery models, and better tailoring of the combined solutions based on client insights.

Injazat, Kalaam Telecom sign agreement for Cyber Fusion Centre and services in Bahrain and Kuwait Building cyber defence capabilities in Bahrain and Kuwait took a significant step closer with an agreement signed between Injazat, the UAE’s home-grown technology champion in Digital Transformation, Cloud, and Cyber Security, and Kalaam Telecom, a leading Internet Service Provider and Managed Digital Solution provider in the region for digital transformation.

In the signed Memorandum of Understanding agreed between the two companies, they have announced their commitment to collaborate on exploring opportunities towards building a customised Cyber Fusion Centre in Bahrain and Kuwait and provide Cyber Security services to government and semi-government entities, leveraging both parties’ assets, know-how and capabilities.

The MoU was signed by Ussama Dahabiyeh, Chief Executive Officer at Injazat, and Veer Passi, CEO at Kalaam Telecom, during the Gitex that was held at Dubai World Trade Centre last week. Under the agreement, both companies will specifically evaluate the framework to develop high-level business plans towards establishing state-of-the-art Cyber Fusion Centres that will significantly bolster the security posture for Kalaam’s client portfolio in both Bahrain and Kuwait.

Modelled after Injazat’s very own Cyber Fusion Centre, the platform co-created in collaboration with Kalaam will adopt an intelligencedriven, collaborative, and automated security approach much needed for countering advanced security threats.

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Accenture, Etisalat Digital, Oracle create one-stop SaaS PaaS IaaS shop for UAE and Saudi Arabia Accenture, Etisalat Digital, and Oracle have signed a three-year memorandum of understanding to offer SMEs and large enterprise clients in the Middle East a seamless digital transformation and journey to Oracle cloud solutions that include infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service.

By offering a one-stop-shop for Oracle solutions, the new collaboration will allow Accenture, Etisalat Digital, and Oracle to create a joint value proposition for clients in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the wider region.

Under the agreement, Etisalat Digital assumes the responsibility of managed services, security, and operations, with Oracle as the cloud provider and Accenture responsible for cloud-enabled transformation, implementation, and migration services. Enterprises eager to anchor their cloud journeys on Oracle cloud offerings will be provided best-in-class Oracle

cloud hosting, as well as delivery and operations services.

The MoU was signed by Gerardo Canta, Senior Managing Director at Accenture in the Middle East; Salvador Anglada, Group Chief Business Officer of Etisalat; and Leopoldo Boado, Senior Vice President - Business Applications, ECEMEA region, Oracle, in the presence of senior representatives from these organisations.

The scope of the agreement will see Etisalat Digital and Accenture shape Oracle-powered cloud transformation journeys and deliver local deployment of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI and Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications implementation services in the UAE and KSA. The parties will leverage their global scale, industry expertise, and local knowledge to provide best-in-class digital transformation cloud solutions and unleash the full potential

of what technologies can do for organisations and for clients in the Middle East. In addition, the collaboration will accelerate and enhance the power and integration of Oracle solutions for clients, helping them win faster as they transform their businesses.

The agreement is closely aligned with the national visions of GCC governments, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to ensure and drive a sustainable digital agenda while enabling cloud-based transformation that supports easy customer journeys in keeping with the unprecedented changes brought on by the pandemic.

The integration of capabilities will help the region’s public and private entities through the strategy, design, and implementation of their IT and digital roadmaps, leveraging the unique mix of experience from global and local markets and strong credentials in technologyenabled business innovation.

Safe Security, StarLink partner for distribution of real-time risk quantification platform in META

Dr Cherif Sleiman and Zaidoun Arbad.

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StarLink, the fastest-growing TrueValue-Added Distributor in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa region, announced a partnership with Safe Security for distribution of their unified and real-time risk quantification platform, in the META region.

Safe Security, a pioneer in the Cybersecurity and Digital Business Risk Quantification space facilitates organisations to measure and mitigate enterprise-wide cyber risk using its Security Assessment Framework for Enterprises- SAFE platform. These quan tified and consistent real-time cyber risk metrics empowers enterprises to make informed business decisions and most importantly identifies a Dollar Value Risk an organisation is likely to face. By 2025, they envision becoming the global de-facto industry standard to measure and mitigate cyber risk.

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CHANNEL

Samsung Innovation Campus launching in UAE with artificial intelligence course Samsung Gulf Electronics announced that the brand’s global citizenship programme, Samsung Innovation Campus, is launching in the UAE with a brand-new artificial intelligence course to empower youth nationwide.

With accelerated digital transformation across all business sectors and emerging technologies already delivering consistent impact across society, artificial intelligence readiness is now critical to business adaptability, continuity, and long-term success.

Hand in hand with this is the high demand

for technical talent in increasingly artificial intelligence-driven professional environments.

Samsung has carefully designed this artificial intelligence course to enable youth with the right skills to reimagine the future. The new programme will equip participants with valuable artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning knowledge and skillsets, which aligns the brand’s global corporate citizenship mission to provide education for future generations.

The future will undoubtedly be driven

by artificial intelligence and machine learning, with both next-generation technologies already reshaping the world and presenting consumers, businesses, governments, and societies with many valuable benefits. As such, Samsung’s artificial intelligence course will cover the necessary tools and applications needed to put young people ahead of the curve.

Taking place exclusively online, the course will enable participants to learn artificial intelligence modelling on a concrete foundation of mathematics while developing a fluid understanding of artificial intelligence projects, and gaining practical experience in related design, implementation, and results in communication processes. The curriculum will also allow participants to experience machine learning tools and real-world problem solving with various exercises and practical projects. This will be wholly delivered to students accepted into the course at no cost as part of Samsung’s commitment to upskilling the youth of tomorrow.

Upon completion, participating students will understand data science tools, their applications, and the basic concepts of probability, statistics, linear algebra, and python. They will also gain reasonable proficiency in the processes mentioned to implement artificial intelligence through machine learning and deep learning.

Chinese flash storage vendor BIWIN making first time appearance at Gitex BIWIN Storage Technology, a vendor in flash storage, will exhibit at Gitex for the first time.

Based in China with international operations out of Miami USA, BIWIN is a Top 10 storage chip maker in China and winner of the award for China’s Outstanding Domestic Brand Enterprise in Electronic Components Industry.

BIWIN flash storage can be found in many PCs, smartphones, wearables, gaming devices, esports, datacentres, automotive vehicle-mounted systems, surveillance, medical and more.

This year, BIWIN joined an elite list as the Shenzhen Federation of Industry named BIWIN one of Shenzhen’s Famous Brands. aaaa Shenzhen is a leading global technology

hub, dubbed by media as China’s Silicon Valley. As an official part of a national programme to recognise China’s best brands, the Shenzhen Famous Brand has become a gold standard of achievement for Shenzhen enterprises and products.

Across the globe, many famous manufacturers and factories depend upon BIWIN for their solutions. At Gitex, BIWIN will introduce Middle East industry and corporates to the possibilities of flash storage from the industry’s newest state-of-the-art production facility, the BIWIN Science and Technology Zone in Huizhou opening in Q4 2021.

Under official license the company designs, builds, and markets the personal flash storage products of HP, Acer and Predator.

After years of success in the storage

RAFAEL POECKLING, Managing Director for EMEA, BIWIN Technology.

industry, the company has also launched Biwintech, its own consumer brand.

Biwintech personal storage and memory products benefit from the rigorous production requirements learned over years of producing mission-critical industrial storage.

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CHANNEL

(Left to right) Zaidoun Arbad, StarLink’s COO; and Kash Rafique, VP for Middle East and Egypt at Informatica.

StarLink partners with Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management vendor StarLink, a specialised cyber and cloud ValueAdded Distributor in the META region, today announced a new partnership with Informatica, a leader in enterprise cloud data manage-

ment that enables organisations to transform, manage, and synchronise integrated, trusted data from any source and environment, cloud, hybrid, or multi-cloud.

Group-IB partners with Spire Solutions to offer threat hunting, anti-fraud, digital risk protection Group-IB, a solution provider dedicated to detecting and preventing cyberattacks, identifying online fraud, investigating high-tech crimes, and intellectual property protection, signed a partnership agreement with Spire Solutions, the Middle East and Africa region’s leading value-added distributor.

The partnership will allow the Middle East

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region’s enterprises, private, and public companies to enhance their cybersecurity posture with Group-IB’s ecosystem of innovative threat hunting and intelligence, anti-fraud and digital risk protection solutions and award-winning services.

The Middle East and GCC region are home to some of the world’s biggest financial and

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This strategic partnership allows both StarLink and Informatica to capitalise on each other’s core capabilities to enhance and grow the market share in Cloud Technologies. StarLink’s expertise and strengths lie in its highly skilled on-the-ground support in the form of expert Sales and Technical teams, its extensive partner network, and robust customer installed-base across multiple business verticals mainly Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance BFSI, Government, Oil and Gas, and Telecom.

Customers in the region can leverage on the best-of-breed cloud solutions, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, to accelerate their data-driven digital transformations. Not to mention, get access to Informatica’s Intelligent Data Management Cloud, a platform that enables modernised analytics in the cloud with AI-powered data management, for all users and all data and provides more accurate and trusted data across business and IT users.

industrial hubs. Naturally, this turns the region into an attractive target for both financially motivated threat actors and APT groups. The GCC’s efforts to enhance its cyber resilience requires and industry-tailored cyber threat intelligence, digital risk protection, and investigation tools. The partnership between Group-IB and Spire Solutions will enable this by providing comprehensive solutions to customers.

This partnership will allow customers in the region to leverage the full suite of Group-IB’s service and product portfolio including their Group-IB Threat Intelligence and Attribution, Threat Hunting Framework, Fraud Hunting Platform, and Digital Risk Protection solutions. Group-IB’s leading cybersecurity ecosystem and patented innovative technologies help cybersecurity teams consolidate, prioritise, and respond to threats facing their organisation.

Earlier this year, Group-IB inaugurated its regional headquarters and MEA Threat Intelligence and Research Centre to support the region’s fight against cybercrime. The distribution agreement with Spire Solutions underscores Group-IB’s vision to continue expanding its market reach in the Middle East and GCC region.

CHANNEL

Redington upgrades cloud, security, data offerings for channel partners Redington Value announced upgrades to its robust services portfolio with dedicated tracks on cloud, security and data analytics.

Digital transformation mandates are forcing enterprises to embrace advanced technologies. Increasingly organisations are seeking expertise to help navigate and simplify their IT architecture in the new virtual era.

By leveraging professional and managed services through Redington Value’s channel ecosystem, customers can remain focused on core operations and drive profitability. As channel partners take ownership of customers’ IT services, they bring differentiation and unique value to the table.

Through Redington Value’s cloud services portfolio, regional customers can leverage industry best practices and global standards of consulting, professional and managed services on cloud technologies. The CloudQuarks track features the distributor’s Intelligent Cloud Management Platform TrackMyCloud.

TrackMyCloud by Redington simplifies monitoring and optimisation of spending, done on managing the cloud infrastructure.

The vendor-agnostic and user-friendly platform allows partners to build their cloud capabilities and expand their value-added services for customers. Channel partners are equipped with end-to-end resources to help customers modernise their IT environments with Redington’s cloud services.

TrackMyCloud operates across three primary focus areas – Cloud Management Platform, Professional Services and Man-

aged Services. Regional customers can take advantage of Redington consultants’ deep know-how on cloud computing, data analytics, information and cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning to derive maximum value across all aspects of their cloud investments.

Redington’s SecureQuarks portfolio of services offers end-to-end cybersecurity to help customers defend against current and future threats. DigiGlass by Redington, a comprehensive managed security services offering, covers applications, networks, endpoints, data, end-users, infrastructure, clouds, perimeters, and more, all with a range of service levels.

The distributor, together with the expertise of its channel network, enables customers to monitor networks to help detect, identify, and respond to a multitude of known and unknown threats, enabling them to prevent attacks from succeeding.

The analytics wing of Redington’s services portfolio encourages customers to effortlessly transform their business through the power of data.

The distributor provides an extensive list of offerings, ranging from consultation on analytics assessment, migration to modern architectures from legacy BI and data management systems, designing data pipelines and data lakes for operational analytics and ML solutions to visualising and curating dashboards for business KPIs and software installations.

Additionally, partners and customers can take advantage of Redington Value’s exclusive

SAYANTAN DEV, President, Redington Value.

consulting and transformation services arm Citrus Consulting. The distributor offers advanced services and consulting through a two-tier model, by applying human-centred designs, driven by customers’ business goals.

Citrus Consulting houses an agile team of technologists and problem solvers committed to helping inform, explore and confirm user experience decisions and business ideas through innovative technologies and services.

Serving the demands of both channel partners and regional customers, Redington Value is doubling down on its efforts across three knowledge-based services in its portfolio – CloudQuarks, SecureQuarks and DataQuarks.

AVEVA, Schlumberger announce partnership streamlining data for energy operators

ANDREW MCCLOSKEY, Chief Technology Officer, AVEVA.

Schlumberger and AVEVA announced an agreement to integrate edge, AI and cloud digital solutions to help operators optimise oil and gas production. The companies will work together to streamline how energy operators acquire, process and action field data. Initial focus of the collaboration includes linking edge systems to applications in the DELFI cognitive environment to better manage equipment health and optimise performance.

The collaboration will bring to market the IoT and cloud capabilities of both companies.

This includes the data management platform capabilities of the AVEVA PI System and Schlumberger domain expertise and analytics capabilities provided by Agora edge AI and IoT solutions and the DELFI environment. The companies also plan joint technology integrations, sales and service support, and go-to-market activity.

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CHANNEL

TSME and Automation Anywhere launch RPA training at universities in Jordan

OMAR MADA’EEN, Regional Manager, TSME Middle East.

TSME in collaboration with Automation Anywhere, announced an initiative to launch RPA training to five renowned universities in Jordan. The programme will initially deliver RPA skills training to university faculty members of Yarmouk University, Mutah University, Tafila Technical University, Princess Sumaya University for Technology and Jordan University of Science and Technology.

The initiative is part of Jordan’s 2021-2025 National Strategy for digital transformation to promote the development of a digitally savvy economy and workforce. In partnership with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship MoDEE employees will have the opportunity for e-learning and training on RPA from TSME, as well as earning certifications in RPA from Automation Anywhere University, the education and certification division of Automation Anywhere.

In addition to training faculty members,

the initiative will extend to students, who will be trained and certified internationally in an effort to secure specialised skills needed for employment throughout the country. The collaboration agreement was signed in the presence of His Excellency Ahmed Al-Hanadeh, Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship and representatives of TSME and Automation Anywhere.

Initiative led by MoDEE, Automation Anywhere and TSME aims to strengthen digital skills among Jordanian populace The University heads also echoed the importance for the need of widespread use of exponential technologies to transform learning journeys and advocated the fact that preparing the youth to use technology effectively is an essential real-world skill especially under unprecedented circumstances such as the pandemic. They also reiterated the significance to acquire the knowledge and capabilities needed to succeed in the digital age.

(Left to right) Mahmoud Nimer, President-StarLink and Nasser El Abdouli, Director of Channel Sales-META.

StarLink will distribute solutions from F5 across the Gulf and Levant StarLink, a Value-added Distributor in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa region, announced an agreement for the distribution of F5 solutions across the Gulf and Levant.

A global leader in multi-cloud application security and delivery, F5 empowers its customers – the world’s largest enterprises, service pro-

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viders, financial and educational institutions, government entities, and consumer brands – to create, secure, and operate applications that deliver extraordinary digital experiences.

Fueled by automation and AI-driven insights, these applications naturally adapt based on their changing environment so companies can

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focus on their core business, boost speed to market, improve operations, and build trust with their customers. By enabling these adaptive applications, F5 – with its NGINX, Shape Security, and Volterra technologies – offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for every digital organisation in the world.

CLOUD

Riverbed adds Azure, AWS cloud features to Network Performance Management delivers greater cloud visibility that is crucial to monitoring productivity and performance, as organisations continue to shift toward hybrid and multi-cloud network environments.

As part of Riverbed’s Unified NPM solution, Riverbed NetProfiler enables organisations to achieve full-fidelity network flow monitoring to proactively identify and quickly troubleshoot performance and security issues.

The new features introduced today improve

cloud visibility by supporting native Azure NSG flow logs and augment support for AWS VPC flow logs. Riverbed automates reporting capabilities for AWS VPC flow logs to enrich information sharing. Riverbed is also introducing a modernised user interface UI with a new home screen and simplified search functionality, making NetProfiler easier to use and helps NetOps and SecOps users to resolve network issues more quickly.

NEOM Tech and Digital Holding Company, the first holding company to be established as a subsidiary of NEOM, announced Oracle as the first tenant of its hyperscale datacentre at NEOM. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will be hosted at the datacentre, providing a high-performing, resilient foundation for cloud services.

To meet business continuity and compliance requirements, Oracle’s unique dual-region cloud strategy enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple geographically separated locations within a country, without having sensitive data leave the country. The agreement follows

the successful launch of the Oracle Cloud Saudi Arabia West Region in Jeddah in February 2020 and supports Oracle’s commitment to open two dedicated cloud regions in the Kingdom.

The datacentre, 51% owned by NEOM Tech and Digital Hold Co. and 49% by EzdiTek, will be designed to meet the highest security standards in the industry and serve MENA, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and eventually Europe. The datacentre, strategically located at the nexus of terrestrial and sub-sea cable cables, enabling it to provide customers with fast and reliable connectivity.

NEOM Tech and Digital Hold Company also announced a $0.5 Billion joint venture with EzdiTek to power the creation and operation of the datacentre. EzdiTek will partner with global engineering and architectural firms RED and Gensler.

Riverbed announced it added more critical cloud visibility and reporting capabilities to its industry-leading end-to-end visibility solutions – including support of Azure NSG and AWS VPC flow logs.

Key updates to the Riverbed Network Performance Management NPM portfolio— the leading and only unified network visibility solution that collects every packet, all flows and all infrastructure metrics, 100% of the time–-

Oracle’s second cloud region in Saudi Arabia to be located at NEOM

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CLOUD

Oracle announces plans to reach 40+ cloud regions by end of 2022, including second in Abu Dhabi Oracle announced plans to expand its cloud region footprint to support strong customer demand for Oracle Cloud services worldwide.

Over the next year, Oracle will open 12 cloud regions with new locations across Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.

Upcoming cloud regions include Milan Italy, Stockholm Sweden, Marseille France, Spain, Singapore, Johannesburg South Africa, Jerusalem Israel, Mexico, and Colombia.

Additional second regions will open in Abu Dhabi UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Israel, and Chile. Oracle plans to have at least 42 cloud regions by the end of 2022, continuing one of the fastest expansions of any major cloud provider.

Oracle provides a broad and consistent set of cloud services across 30 commercial and

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government cloud regions in 14 countries on five continents to serve its growing global customer base. OCI currently operates 23 commercial regions and seven government regions, in addition to multiple dedicated and national security regions.

OCI’s next-generation architecture provides a high-performing, resilient foundation for cloud services, while its physical and virtual network design maximises performance and security.

Each Oracle Cloud region contains at least three fault domains, which are groupings of hardware that form logical datacentres for high availability and resilience to hardware and network failures. Some regions Ashburn, Phoenix, Frankfurt, and London provide further resilience to entire datacentres through

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multiple availability domains ADs, which each contain three fault domains.

For business continuity and compliance requirements, Oracle’s unique dual-region cloud strategy enables customers to deploy resilient applications in multiple geographically separated locations—without having sensitive data leave the country.

To help customers plan datacentre deployments to meet application requirements and optimise their cloud infrastructure, OCI’s provides a no cost inter-region latency dashboard that provides insights into real-time and historical latency for Oracle Cloud regions around the globe.

OCI now has 30 cloud regions worldwide, one of the fastest expansions by any major cloud provider.

COVER STORY

MOUSSA ZAGHDOUD,

Executive Vice-President Cloud Communications Business Division and Board Member Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

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COVER STORY

ALCATEL-LUCENT ENTERPRISE

BUILDING A HYBRID

COMMUNICATION STRATEGY While hyper scalers have enabled business applications to be accessed through cloud models, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is now accelerating consumption of communication through its cloud services and partners.

W

e live in an increasingly unpredictable world. Past events have pushed businesses to their limits. However, they have also opened the door to new opportunities. We have seen that when the world shuts down, the only way companies can continue to operate is within a flexible, cloud-based communications environment. Business continuity is not the only advantage. Cloud technology can also be the answer to overcome severe budgetary constraints.

Cloud, social networks, mobile internet, big data, and importantly, customers are driving enterprises to adopt digital transformation. The combination of social networks, mobile Internet, data lakes, accessible as services from the cloud is transforming how people collaborate.

It is also changing how enterprises want to engage with customers, and more importantly how customers agree to engage with companies. ALE refers to this as digital engagement.

ALE is a French company providing networking and communication equipment and services to businesses of all sizes across industry sectors. Today, ALE has three primary divisions.

The first division is built around telephony, PBX, phones and related equipment, which the vendor has been selling historically as its core competency. The second division of ALE is built around networking equipment, including Wi-Fi, and switches and related equipment. The third division of ALE is its cloud division. The role of this division is to accompany enterprises’ transformation to the cloud.

Previously businesses used to have only phones and PBXs and

now they are moving to collaboration. “And this is interesting because not only is it a technology jump to something else, but also a change in the business model, in the way we are selling, in the way we are doing support, and in the way we are operating. So that is what we do actually in this division,” explains Moussa Zaghdoud, Executive Vice-President Cloud Communications Business Division and Board Member, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

This division of ALE was started by Zaghdoud, six years ago and has now become a strategic asset of ALE, helping the vendor move forward in digital transformation.

Released in 2017, Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, has become a complete, cloud-based platform providing multiple cloud services to more than a million users every day. Rainbow enables connections between people, processes and objects. A suite of APIs and SDKs are attracting global developers to create a community.

Rainbow can be used as a Communication Platform as a Service, CPaaS to enable communications to be at the centre of communications enabled business processes.

On the other hand, Rainbow and its CPaaS capabilities are instrumental in digital engagement, by integrating real-time communications and business applications, with mobile and web applications.

Enterprises are able to offer innovative solutions for customer service, to attract and retain their customers.

BUILDING CLOUD SERVICES For its cloud solutions and services, ALE is using cloud technology hosted at different datacentres around the world. “We have those

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COVER STORY

ALE’s cloud solutions are based on scalability, databases, load balancers, proxy service, amongst others, with the idea to scale up to 500,000 concurrent users if required.

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Rainbow instances in our datacentres in different continents. We have 22 datacentres in five continents, and we are spread there because not only do you need to have these instances, but you are also talking about architecture”, explains Zaghdoud.

ALE is using WebRTC or Web Real-Time Communication technology, which makes its solutions vendor agnostic and browser based.

ALE’s cloud solutions are based on scalability, databases, load balancers, proxy service, amongst others, with the idea to scale up to 500,000 concurrent users if required.

According to Wikipedia, WebRTC is an open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication via application programming interfaces. It allows audio and video communication to work inside web pages by allowing direct peer-to-peer communication, eliminating the need to install plugins or download native apps.

WebRTC is supported by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera. WebRTC specifications have been published by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engi-

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neering Task Force. Other than WebRTC, ALE is using SIP for voice and signalling; XMPP for messaging.

“We need to be elastic enough to make it happen. So, from that perspective, I would say that we are not that different from Zoom or Microsoft Teams. We are touching the same type of technology here,” adds Zaghdoud.

While ALE is using global and open standards in its cloud solutions, Zaghdoud explains ALE is also actively involved in adding and building these global standards for the industry.

For its global cloud hosting, ALE has relationships with hosting providers and less reliance on traditional hyper scalers. ALE is using the European player OVH and IBM. OVH Groupe SAS, is a French cloud computing company which offers VPS, Virtual Private Servers, dedicated servers and other web services. As of 2016 OVH owned the world’s largest datacentre in surface area. As of 2019, it was the largest hosting provider in Europe, and the third largest in the world based on physical servers.

Another reason why ALE is using the European player OVH is related to its sovereign

COVER STORY

cloud stamp, points out Zaghdoud. He feels this is important in Europe for some of ALE’s key customer segments including the army, government, and educational universities.

DIFFERENTIATING CLOUD SERVICES By not using global hyper scalers AWS and Microsoft, ALE offers an alternative to its global customers for data sovereignty, while delivering true cloud architecture and scalability.

Another important aspect of ALE’s cloud solution portfolio is that it does not depend on any third-party software providers to enhance its user experience. It relies on its 100-year baseline of experience and intellectual property in the telecommunication industry to drive its innovation.

“We do not want to be depending on them. All the components in terms of software, are ALE ownership. 100% of Rainbow software is ALE’s property and we do not have any third-party elements over there,” stresses Zaghdoud.

As part of ALE’s vision of digital engagement, Zaghdoud believes ALE’s cloud solutions provide simplicity and ease of use, and strong and readily visible business benefits for end customers. However, the real traction for ALE’s cloud solutions, is when they have the capability to integrate with the existing business processes of the end customer.

As ALE approaches its installed base of global customers and offers them a migration path to the cloud, the ability to work with their existing workflow, collaboration, and communication processes at the end customer’s business is also important.

“What we see as a need as well, beyond the simplicity and beyond the business model, is the integration capabilities. Which means, when we go and explain to our customers, with the renewal of, let’s say, old ones, we have to show them that we have the capabilities to integrate with their business processes,” he adds.

Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is a CPaaS platform and provides APIs to build integration. Key integrations are with ServiceNow, Google, and Salesforce.

In order to build these integration capabilities, ALE’s cloud solutions have built-in connectors or APIs. ALE is also making these APIs available to developers so that they can integrate ALE’s cloud solutions with theirs.

“At the end, it is super standard. We are using Rest APIs, web services, so anyone that has the skills of this can do it. This was not the case in the past,” says Zaghdoud.

While there are multiple competitor products available in the market, the integration capabilities of ALE’s cloud solutions with a customer’s business processes continues to be a strong differentiator.

Another important expectation from end customers of ALE’s cloud solutions is security and the confidentiality of their data. It is for this reason that ALE is offering their cloud solutions as public hosting with Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral, and private hosting offer with Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. For existing customers, who need the choice of accessing ALE’s solutions both from public cloud as well as locally, ALE offers them the hybrid version as well.

Digital transformation requires a clear enterprise communication strategy, including the cloud, as well as mobile and big data to enable new business opportunities to deliver the digital experience that customers are seeking.

A hybrid communications strategy featuring services on premises, or in the cloud, can pave the way toward a digital experience with real-time communications at its cornerstone. ë

OVERVIEW n ALE is using WebRTC technology, which makes its

solutions vendor agnostic and browser based. n ALE’s cloud solutions are based on scalability, data-

bases, load balancers, proxy service, amongst others, with the idea to scale up to 500,000 concurrent users if required. n Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has become a

complete, cloud-based platform providing multiple cloud services to more than a million users every day. n ALE has relationships with hosting providers and less

reliance on traditional hyper scalers and is using the European player OVH and IBM. n Another reason why ALE is using the European player

OVH is related to its sovereign cloud stamp. n Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is a CPaaS

platform and provides APIs to build integration.

Key integrations are with ServiceNow, Google, and Salesforce. n The integration capabilities of ALE’s cloud solutions

with a customer’s business processes continues to be a strong differentiator. n Another important expectation from end customers of

ALE’s cloud solutions is security and the confidentiality of their data.

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SPECIAL REPORT

CYBERSECURITY

DIVERSITY DRIVING POSITIVE GAINS Top women executives in cybersecurity share their career experiences, day to day responsibilities, and how diversity is becoming a positive sum game for the industry.

CHRISTIE STRUCKMAN, Gartner

KARA SPRAGUE, BIG-IP and Girls Who Code

ANNA CHUNG, Palo Alto Networks

DEEPA KUPPUSWAMY, ManageEngine

GIULIANA CARULLO, Tenable

HAIFA KETITI, Proofpoint

LAYALE HACHEM, BeyondTrust

MOR LEVI, Cybereason

NOURAH ALZAHRANI, ThreatQuotient

RASHA RAJEH, Infoblox

SHAUNTINEZ JAKAB, Virsec

SOUMYA PRAJNA, Help AG

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SPECIAL REPORT

GARTNER

BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE WORKPLACE IN THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY Gartner recommends four strategies for women committed to developing their own IT careers, as well as pathways for anyone under-represented in IT.

#1 BUILD A COMMUNITY Build a supportive community that includes many different people, but features four key roles: l Coach: To help group members develop specific skills or competencies, such as reading data or presenting information. l Mentor: To help navigate career options and decisions. Consider tapping mentors from outside the organisation. l Ally: To provide support in challenging situations. For example, in a hiring situation it might be someone who says, I have noticed we do not have any female candidates. Is that something we can look into? l Sponsor: To advocate for others — expending their own political capital to further the careers of others.

CHRISTIE STRUCKMAN, VP Analyst, Gartner.

#2 MANAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND If you are still thinking about your career as a ladder and you are trying to figure out how to climb to the next rung, it is time to change mindsets. Consider your career in terms of purpose. Your purpose is a combination of what you love to do, what you are good at and what you are paid well to do.

Identify where you enjoy spending time and where you have been praised for good work. This can be a specific task like fundraising for a specific cause or the way in which you work, such as your approach to analysing data. The key is to use purpose as a basis for your brand and to choose your career path accordingly.

#3 FIX PAY INEQUITY Consider these three ways to further pay equity: Educate on negotiations Sixty percent of women have never negotiated their pay. If you’re in a position to coach other women on this skill, do so.

Pay equitably for like roles If you are in control of pay, be clear and open about paying equitably.

Resolve data, method and technology Leaders are often frustrated by the lack of data on pay. IT leaders are in a position to partner with other business leads and provide better data — for example, in a salary audit.

#4 CONFRONT MARGINALISING BEHAVIOUR Behaviours that marginalise women can include anything from ageism to pet names to over-explaining and gender-biased language. These may not rise to the level of being reported to HR, but they are relentless behaviours that add up throughout a job or career. Call out these behaviours if and when you see them in meetings or in the workplace. ë

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SPECIAL REPORT

GIRLS WHO CODE

GOAL IS TO ACHIEVE GENDER PARITY IN TECHNOLOGY JOBS Kara got involved with Girls Who Code when she was at McKinsey and their goal of achieving gender parity in technology jobs within this decade resonated with her.

KARA SPRAGUE,

EVP and GM of BIG-IP at F5, Board member at Girls Who Code.

T

he influence of coding continues to disrupt and transform all industries. For example, look at what businesses like Uber and Lyft have done in the transportation space. Or what Airbnb has done in the hospitality sector. Or Amazon in retail. Technology wields an enormous influence these days, bringing disruption and profound change. That is why it is so important for young people to not only gain an appreciation for that impact, but also build a capability to participate in it.

The prototypical coder that is represented in a lot of our media is usually a male working alone in the dark, and somebody that is not totally socially oriented. That kind of persona is not appealing to a large proportion of prospective coders.

The reality is that there are a whole range of activities associated with bringing a successful technology or software product to market. It involves a wide range of skillsets, as well as many different types of jobs and contributions—all of which come from a foundation of having an understanding about coding, and a passion for unlocking the potential of technology.

Kara recommends starting simple, and there are many free resources and offerings from different organisations online. Kara is a board member for Girls Who Code, so is particularly partial to their work and mission to achieve gender parity in technology. For example, they run Summer Immersion Programs and sponsor clubs both in the US and internationally that teach girls to code.

There are many other organisations that offer similar enablement and education opportunities. Her advice to those interested in learning to code is to stick with it. As with most competencies, coding is something that comes to you over time.

Kara got involved with Girls Who Code when she was at McKinsey and they reached out for help with their strategy. At the time, they were one of the fastest growing non-profits in the United States and also recognised as one of the most innovative.

Their mission really resonated with Kara, so she leapt at the opportunity to support them pro-bono. In 2016, she was invited to join the board. Her work with them is around advising on growth and thinking through what kind of

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It is vital that all kids are given the opportunity to learn coding programmes they can offer to expand their impact.

Their goal is to achieve gender parity in technology jobs within this decade. To Kara, and so many others, this is a really exciting and important mission.

Girls Who Code started in 2012, and the first girls that went through the programme graduated from college in 2016-17.

Through a combination of their teaching, awareness-raising initiatives, and advocacy work, Girls Who Code is now responsible for a large proportion of women entering the technology world.

The organisation is making a big and meaningful impact when it comes to increasing diversity in technology.

Kara is encouraged by how some countries have adopted requirements in their core curriculums for kids to learn coding.

This bodes well for their technology sectors and job-creation abilities moving forward.

Outside of formal curriculum requirements, there is a lot of work taking place across the technology industry and non-profit sector to upskill young people, with a focus on under-represented groups. It is vital that all kids are given the opportunity to learn coding.

To secure a more equitable future, we must nurture a diverse pipeline of talent that can build and excel within technology organisations. Coding and technology are now so important to the global economy—and life in general—that everyone should have an opportunity to participate. ë

SPECIAL REPORT

PALO ALTO NETWORKS

CYBERSECURITY DEMANDS ROBUST AND DIVERSE SKILL SET Cybersecurity is a young industry with potential and does not just need people who are maths, engineering and coding and demands a more robust skill set.

ANNA CHUNG,

Principal Researcher at Unit 42, Palo Alto Networks.

A

nna’s role on the Unit 42 team is to understand the cyberthreat landscape and provide intelligence assessments to help customers prioritise their actions, time and resources. As a threat hunter and dark web expert, she typically spends her day researching new malicious tools, tactics and procedures discovered by the global security community.

One of her achievements is mentoring women who want to enter this industry or further their cybersecurity career – she utilise her personal experiences, insights, and professional networks to help them best navigate where they are in their career progression and what they need to do next to realise their dreams, goals and to reach their desired next step.

Many people might think of technology as being a cookie-cutter setting – they believe

there is a mold you have to fit with a specific set of experience, behaviors, skills, and maybe even genders. However, every individual brings unique qualities to a role. Cybersecurity is a field that benefits with more newer ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, and we need people with different backgrounds to join the industry to foster further.

Anna sees one of the main coaching goals as encouraging young women to respect all elements in the industry to better understand their own strengths and limitations, because they all have their own unique attributes as individuals.

Cybersecurity is such a young industry and full of potential that it does not just need people who are maths, engineering and coding; the job demands a much more robust and diverse skill set. If working in technology interests you, her advice is to just be yourself – as your personality, ideas, perspectives, and diverse experiences are welcome at the majority of the workplaces.

Anna’s interest towards the cybersecurity sector developed based on how international affairs and security work in parallel. The journey within the cybersecurity field has been very exciting as it is such an ever-changing sector, offering the opportunity to work with law enforcement agencies, policy makers, researchers, and private sectors across the globe.

From a security point of view, there is great value in threat intelligence if it is shared rapidly on a wider level amongst vendors, governments and commercial organisations. ë

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MANAGEENGINE

DIVERSE INDIVIDUALS KEY FOR PROBLEMS, NEW CHALLENGES Some of the traits of people who thrive in this profession are curiosity, persistence, risk and threat mindset, willingness to take on a challenge.

DEEPA KUPPUSWAMY,

Information Security Architect, ManageEngine.

C Having a team of diverse individuals can bring different ways of thinking and a fresh perspective

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ybersecurity requires a multi-disciplinary approach to solving problems, where people from different specialties can contribute. Security engineers, threat analysts, incident responders, digital forensic experts, ethical hackers, and risk and compliance analysts are a few of the specialised roles of a modern cybersecurity team.

The cyberthreats we currently face is diverse and instigated by hackers of varied backgrounds and motives. Having a team made up of diverse individuals can bring different ways of thinking and a fresh perspective to both old problems and new challenges. Some of the common traits of people who thrive in this profession are curiosity, persistence, a risk and threat mindset, and a willingness to take on a challenge.

Building a diverse team is not only the right thing to do from a moral perspective–it is fast becoming a necessity because of the huge skill gap the industry is facing. So, organisations need to expand their idea of the “right” person for an open cybersecurity position.

Working in the security domain, no two days are the same. Deepa loves the challenge of building a security and data protection program to fit the

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organisation’s culture, and to engineer and scale its security tools and processes as the business evolves and scales.

Being in the thick of a security incident and driving the incident response process successfully is an exciting adrenaline rush every time. It’s fulfilling to brainstorm with various business units to understand their unique problems and come up with solutions to improve the security posture and be a business enabler.

Also, you are a life-long learner in this career.

There is always the need to be up to date on security news and new technologies and be in touch with the wider community. The fast-paced environment makes her career interesting and fulfilling.

With over 20 years of experience in the software industry, Deepa Kuppuswamy is currently spearheading the security team at ManageEngine and Zoho. She led some key engineering initiatives for several IT management products across Zoho Corporation for a decade and now is specifically working in the information security domain for the past eight years.

On the technical side, a data-driven mindset, strong analytical and diagnostic skills, and the ability to think like an attacker are noteworthy skills. ë

SPECIAL REPORT

PROOFPOINT

ROLE REQUIRES PROBLEM SOLVING, COMMUNICATION, ADAPTIVE LEARNING Some of the analytical skills that Haifa has developed are system security networking, understanding of operating systems, how data is structured and stored.

HAIFA KETITI,

Senior Systems Engineer, Middle East, Proofpoint.

H Having a team of diverse individuals can bring different ways of thinking and a fresh perspective

aifa’s core responsibility is to help companies find cybersecurity solutions and use the best people-centric technology to achieve their goals, and most importantly keep them and their data safe.

Haifa’s role at Proofpoint has presented a multitude of opportunities for growth and ongoing development. Some of the analytical skills that she has honed-in her career are system security networking and a thorough understanding of operating systems and how data is structured, stored, and disseminated. In addition to the technical strengths mentioned above, her role also requires her to be adept at problem solving, communication and adaptive learning.

While cybersecurity is one of the most fastpaced, rapidly evolving modern industries, this evolution has been slower when looking at the number of women taking up careers in cybersecurity. With that, Hafia believes that women can be very skilled cyber professionals.

At Proofpoint, she has been fortunate to work within an organisation that empowers strong female role models and have a platform where she is encouraged and bolstered to grow her skillset.

Haifa has been able to find her voice and build confidence without being intimidated by any diversity

issues that the industry has previously faced.

Improving diversity in the cybersecurity industry by hiring people from different backgrounds not only helps better reflect the population and create a culture of inclusivity at the workplace, but it can also bring different ways of thinking and different skills to the table. Diversity could also help improve online defences because it will enable information security teams to think about – and defend against – concepts and attack techniques they may not have considered before.

The more companies include new and varied viewpoints, evolved from different backgrounds and expertise, the better-informed the industry becomes, and the better equipped companies are to innovate as a business and respond to the evolving threat landscape.

With an ever-expanding scope, cybersecurity presents the ultimate growth potential both in terms of career path and for learning opportunities. Haifa has had multiple enriching experiences throughout her career but one her favourites is being part of Proofpoint Protect event which is an opportunity for Proofpoint’s valued customers to gather and learn together.

It is an annual security summit for customers, partners and guests. Presented online, they share strategies, knowledge and the latest intel on cybersecurity. ë

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TENABLE

DIVERSITY SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED TO BREAK THE GLASS CEILING Even the smallest community are diverse, the most obvious one, diversity of gender, with opinions and contributions that each member brings to the table.

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s Senior Manager of the Research Automation Infrastructure, Giuliana leads a team that works on collecting and modelling intelligence for a comprehensive directory of identified weaknesses in security procedures, software processes and systems. Her role as a Senior Manager is to innovate technology, ensuring that Tenable is supporting organisations in understanding and addressing their cyber risks.

Giuliana is a leader by choice, not by chance. She believes that leadership acts as an enabler to the people in her community — within her own team or the wider Tenable employees, customers and partners, so they can be their best. One core skill she abides by is to listen more than one speaks and be empathetic no matter what. Giuliana’s final tip is to leave the ego at the door: being humble is a strength.

She notes that the subject of diversity in the technical workforce is a recognised challenge – one that has gradually improved over time. In recent years several voices raised awareness and discussions around empathy and caring as a leader to embrace diversity and to boost workplace health and effectiveness.

By implementing good leadership practices, as well as providing training and mentoring to new leaders, Giuliana believes this will help reduce the gap and open communication channels amongst individuals, regardless of background, gender, race, ethnicity or any other demographic.

Rather than seeing them as inhibitions, workplaces should recognise and celebrate

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these differences.

At the end of the day, a business is nothing more than a group of people, often organised by a common set of values and interests that carry forward a shared mission. Even the smallest community, families, for instance, are diverse by nature: the most obvious one, diversity of gender, but nonetheless difference of opinions and contributions that each member brings to the table.

For companies, and cybersecurity specifically, it is nothing special or different.

Diversity should be applicable and encouraged in any social setting to help break the glass ceiling, paving the way for diversity amongst the leaders of the future.

Working in cyber security has enabled Giuliana to work across the globe from the very beginning of her career, which is exciting as it allows her the opportunity to have a better insight and understanding of diverse cultures and workplaces, a valuable experience to have as a professional and as a leader. ë

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GIULIANA CARULLO,

Senior Manager Research Automation Infrastructure, Tenable.

Diversity should be applicable paving the way for diversity amongst leaders of the future

SPECIAL REPORT

BEYONDTRUST

ACCELERATION OR INHIBITION DUE TO GENDER WILL SOON VANISH Technology companies have acknowledged an unjustified gender gap and are promoting diversity in workplace, with this notion expected to vanish completely.

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ayale’s main responsibilities include analysing customers’ cybersecurity requirements, mapping security challenges to effective solutions, presenting BeyondTrust technologies, and supporting organisations in their technology evaluation process. The role itself requires both technical and sales skills; the solutions engineer should be equipped with product expertise, general industry knowledge, and a sales mindset.

One of the main skills, Layale has built over the last few years is having a receptive mindset. Once she stepped into the cybersecurity industry, she quickly realised that the best thing she can do to grow professionally, is absorb as much knowledge as possible from experienced people around her.

For this reason, Layale always welcomes feedback, comments, constructive criticism, and praise. Not only does it make it easier for other people to work with her, but it also allows her to constantly develop by learning from past experiences.

Self-confidence and decisiveness are additional traits that Layale has really honed over the course of her career. Work experiences

have helped Layale build confidence in her technical aptitude and ability to deliver positive business outcomes.

Layale believes that it is harder for women to gain the respect, that they deserve, in the field. Though this is not a general attitude towards women in cybersecurity, it does occur. The problem is that women tend to doubt themselves, instead of questioning the intention of other people, which reflects badly on confidence and leadership competence.

Nonetheless, women are thriving as cybersecurity professionals, not only because they proved themselves as valuable human resources to organisations but also because the world is doing a much better job at accepting and empowering women in different types of businesses.

We are constantly seeing women step up and assume leadership roles across many types of different organisations worldwide.

While gender used to play a role in the past, Layale really believes that enough women have created success stories for us not to even consider this gender question anymore.

In fact, technology companies have

LAYALE HACHEM,

Solutions Engineer, BeyondTrust.

acknowledged an unjustified gender gap and are actively promoting diversity in the workplace. This notion of acceleration or inhibition due to gender will soon vanish completely.

Layale believes that characteristics are individual, not gender related, but diversity in general increases productivity, creativity, and collaboration.

Specifically, in a male dominated field, women can offer new perspectives and work methodologies.

She does see it first-hand within the iMEA team at BeyondTrust where they have several women in roles spanning channel, solution engineering, marketing and sales.

Layale always enjoys exchanging technical knowledge with other people. One of her most favourite experiences was delivering, at a really young age, a technical five-day training class to a large group of IT managers and systems administrators. She was the only woman in the room and was also by far the youngest person.

The reason why the experience is so memorable for Layale is because it proved to her that regardless of age or gender, a qualified person will always gain the respect he or she deserves. After that training, she was overwhelmed with positive feedback and also gained lifelong friends.

Layale enjoys working in a space, offering solutions to modern cybersecurity threats and challenges. Furthermore, not only does she get to work with cutting edge technologies but to the point on diversity, being part of the iMEA team, Layale gets to work with outstanding men and women from diverse backgrounds and cultures which makes the experience so much more enriching. ë

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CYBEREASON

INVESTIGATING THREATS AND MANAGING AMAZING PEOPLE Mor is a believer in people and providing them with freedom and responsibility, which helps attract talent and allows her to grow and lead the team.

MOR LEVI,

VP Global Security Practices, Cybereason.

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s part of Mor’s responsibility, she leads a global organisation of cybersecurity experts that are responsible for providing Incident Response Services, Threat Research and Intelligence.

Mor started her career in the industry when she was 18 years old, as part of her military service in the Israeli Defense Forces. She went through IT training and evolved from there to information security and eventually made the transition to cybersecurity.

During Mor’s career, she has been operating in various cybersecurity roles — operational security, cybersecurity research, that included malware analysis and threat hunting capabilities, Incident Response and Forensics, security consulting and product security management.

The key technical capabilities that Mor has developed and nurtured along the years are an understanding of network security and operating systems, and how attackers can leverage those infrastructures via exploitation of vulnerabilities, misconfiguration or via malicious tools/software.

It was important for her to use various tools and techniques to perform investigations, so she could better understand the whole process of a cyberattack and how to potentially prevent it or reduce the risk of it reoccurring.

As for managerial skills, Mor is a big believer in trusting her people and providing them with enough freedom, but also responsibility. This is a delicate science or art, but it helps to attract great talent and allows her, as

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a manager, to grow and lead the team with confidence.

Mor believes that it really depends on the person and their belief system, moral conscience and professional etiquette. The way people develop and grow themselves is driven by the environment but also by their ambitions, willingness to work hard and ability to identify the right opportunities.

Some of Mor’s colleagues have concerns about their career progression due to gender and others do not. In some cases, it is a result of a company’s culture or lack of diversity, while in other cases, rather than gender, it is due to a misalignment between employee’s expectations for career progression and the company’s policies — for example some companies would not promote people year after year, even if they deserve that.

Mor thinks that diversity enriches our everyday lives and environment and this is particularly true in the cyber security space.

As part of the cyber security world, there is a constant need to be creative and think outside the box, and having a diverse team helps to get a mix of opinions, thoughts and ideas which increase the creativity and the actions that will be done by the team.

Mor has two significant passions as part of her work: investigating threats and managing amazing people.

In one of the cases that was recently investigated by the Cybereason global incident response team, they were able to identify a nation state threat actor that was accessing an environment using very sophisticated and low key techniques.

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Even though Mor was not hands-on in this investigation, it was very satisfying for her to see a global team that she has built, working together, brainstorming ideas, and eventually solving a very complex puzzle and helping Cybereason’s customer get back to business and mature their Cybersecurity resilience.

Another experience that she really enjoys is gathering her leadership group for a week or so to talk about their future goals and strategy but also to become close as human beings and get to know each other better. ë

SPECIAL REPORT

THREATQUOTIENT

EQUAL ACCESS, FAIR TREATMENT DRIVES HIGHER JOB ACCEPTANCE Even the smallest community are diverse, the most obvious one, diversity of gender, with opinions and contributions that each member brings to the table.

NOURAH ALZAHRANI,

Business Development Representative, ThreatQuotient.

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ourah works as a Business Development Representative for ThreatQuotient. According to her, it is a very dynamic role between sales and marketing. She organises, promotes and manages marketing campaigns. Out of each campaign she has to qualify leads, reach out to potential customers and understand what their needs are.

Business Development professionals support the growth of a company as it requires building and maintaining relationships with prospects and partners.

Nourah has a talent for targeting the right contacts and providing them with relevant information. Her strengths lie in forming these connections, bringing value to both ThreatQuotient and their customers.

For Nourah, gender did not prevent her from evolving within the cyber security field where there are equal opportunities for men and women. As a female leader, she believes that it is important for her to cultivate a culture of diversity and inclusion in cyber security, starting at the top with the leadership team, driving innovation and growth within the sector.

Moreover, Saudi women have strengthened their honourable presence within cyber security, through the wise leadership of Fatah under the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and His Highness the Crown Prince.

Nourah firmly feels that a diverse workforce, comprising different ages, races, religions, nationalities, sexual orientations, and gender identities brings a multitude of unique viewpoints and perspectives to the company.

These varied elements can help develop new, creative products and insightful ways to cater to customers.

Saudi women have strengthened their presence within cyber security through the leadership of Fatah The benefits of workplace diversity further include higher revenue, more innovation, better decision making, equal access, fair treatment, a higher rate of job acceptance when offers are made to qualified candidates and better performance than competitors.

Nourah’s favourite experience is preparing for GITEX, the region’s most anticipated technology exhibition. She manages invitations and shares the entire company portfolio with professionals at the event, detailing solutions such as TIP and SOAR as well as other technologies offered by ThreatQuotient. She enjoys the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals and learn from other vendors, as it allows her to expand her knowledge of the cyber security field. ë

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INFOBLOX

CYBERSECURITY STILL HAS PERCEPTION DILEMMA FOR WOMEN It becomes necessary to seize opportunities and demand respect in a male-dominated field and women need to push harder for opportunities, recognition, trust.

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asha Rajeh is Infoblox’s Channel Account Manager for the Middle East. She believes in channel scalability and the power of channel to drive customer success. Her role is driving partners to leverage Infoblox offerings across the MEA region by targeting new logo accounts.

She also works closely with in-country channel leaders, distributors, and resellers to build a more robust partner ecosystem, increase Infoblox’s footprint and grow the business across territories while ensuring equitable profitability for partners.

Rasha’s journey with Infoblox has significantly impacted her professional and personal development, helping her build a tactical approach to enrich her skills and strengths, in particular by developing operational agility, efficiency, and divergent thinking as well as professional adaptability that are so vital in today’s world.

The demand for gender diversity is apparent in the tech world. For Rasha, it becomes especially necessary to seize opportunities and demand respect in a male-dominated field. It comes with some hurdles, as she feels women need to push harder for these opportunities, recognition, and trust.

However, it can also be a good door opener, as people are interested in new diverse insights and perspectives. A diverse workforce can take advantage of new experiences and a wide variety of chances to

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develop, innovate and enhance collaboration. In general, cybersecurity still has a perception dilemma when it comes to women in a cyber world.

Cybersecurity professionals share the same workplace values, priorities, and aspirations in today’s competitive world but have different challenges.

Gender diversity is one challenge for women and keeping up in a male-dominant environment is another. However, the cyber world is even more complex and competitive nowadays, with the need for continuous evolution and transformation, which raises competition. Global companies tend to balance the diversity shortage, challenging everyone to strive for differentiation.

Rasha feels she is lucky that Infoblox encourages and implements gender diversity. She has seen how these efforts can leverage diverse perspectives and creativity to drive innovation and create a more profitable and productive business.

Gender diversity empowers organisations to be more agile and innovative, fostering excellent internal and external communication and improving employee engagement and retention rates. In addition, a genderdiverse talent pool enables an organisation to attract and retain the best workers.

A distinct skill base can also help organisations to offer a broader and more versatile range of products and services. Hopefully, the cybersecurity space can be a more

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RASHA RAJEH,

Channel Account Manager, Middle East, Infoblox.

rewarding and welcoming field for everyone.

Pursuing a career in cybersecurity is extremely exciting and very rewarding, especially as it has become critical to the fabric of any modern business. Besides, it is a culturally diverse industry, allowing interaction with and learning from people of different backgrounds and embracing various cultures.

Moreover, it throws light on the latest innovations, transformations, risks, and trends. Finally, since it is such a fast-evolving industry, it offers the ultimate growth potential with plenty of opportunity and chances to make an impact. ë

Gender diversity is one challenge for women and keeping up in a male-dominant environment is another

SPECIAL REPORT

VIRSEC

EVANGELIST FOR DETERMINISTIC APPROACH TO CYBER PROTECTION Shauntinez has technical strengths that stem from firmware development for parallel systems and engineering studies, enabling her to understand technology.

SHAUNTINEZ JAKAB, Senior Director, Virsec.

S With this experience, she has educated sales executives and industry analysts and advised enterprises

hauntinez helps employees, partners, and industry analysts to understand the level of protection Virsec’s cyber security solutions provide on systems and applications. She acts as an evangelist for Virsec’s deterministic approach to protecting cyber at runtime. She maintains in-depth knowledge of various cyber security solutions and develops productspecific messaging for the company’s different offerings.

Shauntinez has numerous technical strengths that stem from firmware development for parallel systems and engineering studies, enabling her to quickly understand technology, aspects of protected systems, and advanced cyber protection concepts.

She leads by putting the team first, while also enabling and celebrating the success for each individual and efforts to act as a team. She lis-

tens to learn; studies technologies; teaches to share knowledge; and speaks to help others who struggle.

Diversity exposes individuals to different customs, practices, cultures, and approaches that lend to richer perspectives, new ideas, and better approaches to handling situations. Over time, it eliminates barriers and allows people and organisations to grow. With diversity, you often find that the differences in people are only on the surface.

One of her favourite activities is working with Virsec co-founder, whose work in the semiconductor-microprocessor space sparked his idea for the company’s innovative cyber security solution.

Learning the new technology and helping others worldwide develop their understanding of the company’s approach to security, while watching knowledge of our technology spread worldwide as the market catches up has been the most rewarding experience of her career.

With this experience, she has educated sales executives and industry analysts and advised some of the largest enterprises. Through her efforts and others, the Virsec Security Platform is considered the most effective solution for protecting legacy systems, the king of workload protection, and the only solution to stop memory-based exploits and attacks. ë

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HELP AG

DIVERSITY BRINGS NEW VOICES, PERSPECTIVES TO CYBERSECURITY Diversity fosters creativity and innovation by reducing the risk of groupthink, helping to foster a more dynamic mindset within the organisation.

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s Help AG’s Brand Advocate, Soumya handles internal and external brand communications, development of strong relations across all stakeholders, and direction of digital communication channels, among other tasks, aligning marketing activities closely with the strategic business objectives of Help AG. Soumya has developed an understanding of the cybersecurity and larger technology landscape, which is crucial to formulating and executing the best marketing strategies.

On the managerial side, she has successfully applied a people-first philosophy in her department, empowering the team to think independently and work collaboratively to execute successful projects.

Help AG is one of the companies where people are judged on the basis of their aptitude and attitude, rather than their gender, and men and women working at the company are equally encouraged to pursue opportunities to progress in their career.

Thus, Soumya has always felt fully supported in her ambitions at Help AG, enabling her to build on her expertise uninhibited by gender inequality. On a personal level, Soumya has always had an egalitarian mindset, so she has always sought to constantly challenge herself and pursue her ambitions independent of any gender bias.

Diversity always brings new voices and perspectives to the table, which is crucial for any industry – cybersecurity being no exception. Diversity fosters creativity and innovation by reducing the risk of groupthink, helping to foster a more dynamic mindset within the organisation that is conducive to solving challenges and developing innova-

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tive solutions and services.

Companies that are successful in building diverse teams benefit from higher productivity, improved employee engagement, reduced churn rates, and enhanced creativity, all of which lead to healthy corporate cultures and better revenues and profitability. This is even more crucial in cybersecurity, where skill shortage is a global issue and encouraging more and more women and men to dive into this excellent field is the need of the hour.

According to Soumya, the sheer fact that she gets to learn something new every day is the best part. A career in cybersecurity is fast paced, challenging and always evolving.

Data breaches, privacy, security – these are not just enterprise concerns; rather, they apply to every single individual in this digital age and being part of a leading cybersecurity company makes it all the more interesting.

Another part of Soumya’s day-to-day work life that she really loves is the brainstorming sessions with subject matter experts.

One morning, they are debating SASE, and the next they are discussing the response playbooks to application layer DDoS attacks – never a dull moment! The combination of people centricity and innovation makes cybersecurity one of the most exciting careers, not only for today but for all the times to come! ë

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SOUMYA PRAJNA,

Head of Marketing and Communications, Help AG.

Some colleagues have concerns about their career progression due to gender and others do not

INNOVATION

EITC

TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS FROM A SERVICE PROVIDER ETIC offers transformation solutions including blockchain, AI, multi-tenant cloud hosting, 5G, cyber security, SOC, broadband connectivity services.

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u offers mobile and fixed telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV services to individuals, homes and businesses. The company also provide carrier services for businesses and satellite up-downlink services for TV broadcasters.

Products and services promoted by du include Home Plans, Post-paid Plans and Prepaid Plans. For enterprises, services include Closed Business User Group free calling, and preferred International Destinations. du’s AI solutions help to future-proof operating models and support business challenges, ensuring maximum value generation in customers’ AI adoption journey. The telco’s UAE hosted Blockchain Platform – Blockchain Edge on Dubai Pulse also transforms and empowers organisations across the UAE. du’s digital platform connects and manages devices efficiently and effectively, allowing users to control devices remotely, monitor conditions, and avail real-time analytics. du also offers a multi-tenant platform with on-premises or cloud-based integration capabilities, with a readily available plug-in suite for AI, ML, and business automation enablement.

In addition to the du Cyber Defence Centre that was launched earlier this year, du also officially opened of two new data centres that will equip enterprises across the UAE with next-generation digital infrastructure in Kizad Abu Dhabi and DSO Dubai.

Furthermore, du’s products, solutions, and platforms are also backed by 5G. Following the initial rollout out in 2019, du’s 5G network today covers 85% of the UAE’s population. This figure will increase further in due course, with seamless access to industry-leading speeds, enhanced performance and efficiency, and the very best communication experiences. du cloud migration services provide discovery, assessment, design and planning to ensure users have an efficient and optimised approach to the cloud. Its management services help enterprises bridge the cloud talent gap and focus on their core business. Multi cloud delivers a simple way to connect applications, services and data between cloud.

Multi Cloud Management tools, PaaS and Container Services are essential to ensuring rapid growth, innovation and governance. As companies look to innovate, unified Cloud Management is essential to ensuring cohesiveness across the business and to guarantee IT environments are built to support the flow and analysis of data and security from the core to the edge.

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In

2021

du deployed the first 5G leased line in the UAE to power exceptional speeds with ultra-low latency

du was the first to provide a live 5G network experience in the UAE and offer pre-registered customers with the first 5G-enabled devices in the Middle East. du also successfully demonstrated the region’s first-ever video over 5G call. du deployed the Middle East and North Africa’s first millimetre wave site at Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, which will provide the region’s highest ultra-high mobile broadband 5G services.

In 2021, du deployed the first 5G leased line in the UAE to power exceptional speeds with ultra-low latency, this service is strong enough to support enterprise needs with fast, reliable, and improved connectivity they can rely on. du and the technology arm of the Digital Dubai initiative have collaborated together to launch a paperless property rental platform to automate business processes between four connected UAE entities. Available through du Blockchain Edge and Dubai Pulse, all services are linked to a digital tenancy contract through the solution, which will be received within a few minutes following completion of the digital application. du Blockchain Edge provides seamless digital experiences and solutions, guaranteeing scalability and empowering individuals, enterprises, and government entities to contribute to the UAE’s knowledge-based journey which supports the UAE Blockchain Strategy 2021, as well as the Dubai Paperless Strategy. ë

INNOVATION

FAHAD AL HASSAWI,

Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company.

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INNOVATION

RED HAT

VAST MAJORITY ENTERPRISES ADOPTING KUBERNETES, CONTAINERS Vast majority of organisations are rapidly adopting Kubernetes and containers to fuel the growth engine for their digital innovation and transformation.

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ed Hat works to help customers build security into applications, deploy applications onto a hardened platform, and manage, automate, and adapt their infrastructure and applications as security and compliance requirements change. Red Hat solutions also support integration and orchestration of multiple classes of existing security solutions within an enterprise, thereby significantly reducing the burden on the SOC teams.

An average security team typically examines less than 5% of the alerts flowing into them every day. At the same time, the severity of incidents as well as time taken to resolve an incident are increasing. Most organisations have insufficient skilled personnel dedicated to cybersecurity and report it as a major barrier to cyber resilience. Technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence and analytics significantly reduce the burden on SOC teams.

The speed and pattern recognition capabilities of artificial intelligence help SOC teams to configure and quickly validate baseline security estimates. Intelligence gathered by artificial intelligence and machine learning systems can also be used to rapidly scan large scale environments and predict the ways in which bad actors could exploit the systems. Artificial intelligence and machine learning and cloud solutions also help the SOC teams to scale efficiently and analyse large datasets than what was previously possible.

Threat actors are leveraging advanced technology to engineer novel attacks, for example, using speech synthesis for impersonation, exploiting software vulnerabilities through automated hacking and attacking artificial intelligence systems using adversarial examples and data poisoning.

Attackers are also increasingly targeting software and security supply chains to gain unhindered access to enterprise systems. Rapid adoption of cloud services, work from home initiatives is providing hackers with increased opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities, misconfigured systems and lax development practices.

CISOs need to introduce a layered, defence-in-depth security strategy across the entire infrastructure and application stack. Business demand for rapid application development and adoption of hybrid cloud, container technologies will continue to grow as these technologies are at the forefront of Digital Transformation initiatives.

Forward-looking DevOps teams recognise the importance of including security in this DevOps model, leading to the birth of DevSecOps

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Technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence and analytics significantly reduce the burden on SOC teams.

which requires thinking about application and infrastructure security from the start. It underscores the need to help developers code with security in mind, a process that involves security teams sharing visibility, feedback, and insights on known threats.

An organisation’s people and processes also need to be aligned to continuously monitor and address security early in an automated way.

As per IDC, around 65% organisations in the META reported that the pandemic brought forward their digital transformation initiatives by 1-2 years and around 80% expect to have more than one cloud vendor. A vast majority will also adopt agile methodologies and scale their development teams to transform and migrate applications.

By 2024, 70% of the new applications developed worldwide will be containerised for improved deployment speed, application consistency, and portability. Therefore, the vast majority of organisations are rapidly adopting Kubernetes and containers to fuel the growth engine for their digital innovation and transformation. ë

INNOVATION

FOR

AYMAN AL SHAIKH,

Director Solutions Architecture, MENA and Pakistan, Red Hat.

CISOs l Threat actors are using speech synthesis for impersonation, automated hacking and data poisoning. l Attackers are targeting software supply chains to gain access to enterprise systems. l Adoption of cloud, work from home, is providing hackers with opportunities to exploit misconfigured systems and lax development practices. l CISOs need to introduce a layered, defencein-depth security strategy across the entire infrastructure and application stack. l Forward-looking DevOps teams recognise importance of including security in DevOps model, leading to the birth of DevSecOps. l Developers need to code with security in mind, a process that involves security teams sharing insights on known threats. l An organisation’s people and processes also need to be aligned to continuously monitor and address security early in an automated way. l An average security team typically examines less than 5% of the alerts flowing into them every day. l The severity of incidents as well as time taken to resolve an incident are increasing.

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INNOVATION

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

PRINCIPAL CHALLENGE IS TO BALANCE SAFETY AND BUSINESS The main challenge IT and OT leaders are facing right now is to maintain a balance between business needs, and cybersecurity cannot be an afterthought.

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chneider Electric is a critical infrastructure provider and a data custodian for customers, hence, protecting customers assets, operations and data is a top tier risk. Schneider Electric is leading digital transformation and sustainability of energy management and industrial automation. Their products and systems are used in over one million buildings worldwide, including critical infrastructure, for example 40,000 water and wastewater treatment installations, 40% of the world’s hospitals, 10 of the world’s top electric utilities.

Security is at the core of its digital transformation, including product development which is an essential business imperative. Here we incorporate cybersecurity to ensure digital resiliency against security threats.

The advancement of technology means that artificial intelligence as an example increasingly plays a role in how electrical infrastructure is managed.

With the clear efficiency and productivity gains artificial intelligence delivers and in the case of cybersecurity, improved monitoring, the demand for artificial intelligence has been steadily increasing over the past few years.

Artificial intelligence’s capacity to take in and process huge amounts of data in real time means organisations can implement anomaly detection monitoring capabilities that have advanced and improved functionalities to alert issues, recommend action and, in some cases, to even initiate a response.

The main challenge IT and OT leaders are facing right now is to maintain a balance between business needs and keep their organisations safe from threats while ensuring business continuity. That means when a company sets off on its digital transformation, cybersecurity cannot be an afterthought. There is too much at stake for them, financially and operationally.

Implementing the technology will converge IT and OT demands into rethinking their approach to cybersecurity, especially with so many employees working offsite and concepts like remote management of assets taking root in many organisations.

IT and OT business leaders must review all the potential risks across the extended digital enterprise, which means adjusting to the new perimeter, so to include all supply chain stakeholders, third parties, customers, authorities and partners.

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An effective approach to cybersecurity is to leverage industry standards and frameworks such as IEC 62443, NIST.

As IoT, cloud, and remote work have increased digitisation, Zero Trust mindset and architecture is becoming a more important investment and significant retooling, reengineering will be required especially in IAM. Finally, they then must craft and communicate a digital risk strategy that will be understood by management, employees, suppliers, partners, and customers.

An effective approach to cybersecurity is to leverage industry standards and frameworks such as IEC 62443, NIST, as they provide a phased approach to addressing security in a structured manner.

Adopting Cybersecurity Application Platform designed to support customers in implementing controls and best practices, can be key as it allows operational teams to have visibility on data and take action to manage and maintain their cybersecurity control points. By having one platform, customers can save time and resources aligning to cybersecurity standards and best practices and strengthen their OT security posture. ë

INNOVATION

TOM MARSHALL,

Global Cybersecurity Marketing Manager, Schneider Electric.

FOR

CISOs l IT and OT business leaders must review all potential risks across the extended digital enterprise. l As IoT, cloud, and remote work have increased digitisation, Zero Trust mindset and architecture is becoming an important investment. l Communicate a digital risk strategy that will be understood by management, employees, suppliers, partners, customers. l Advancement of technology means artificial intelligence plays a role in how electrical infrastructure is managed.

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INNOVATION

HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY DUBAI

MULTI-DEVICE, MULTI-CLOUD REQUIRES ROBUST SECURITY Organisations should invest in securing devices, educate staff, when connecting to the network, and deploy cloud-based security monitoring platforms.

T

he adoption of remote working in most industries, digital-first customer experiences, no-contact delivery systems, and asynchronous online education means that enabling technologies such as cloud, AI, and data analytics are pivotal and provide end-users greater flexibility in managing their tasks.

As part of their overall digital strategy, enterprises can see commercial advantages in digital technologies such as AI guided security management or cloud-based security monitoring platforms or the addition of analytics which improve the protection of assets and the infrastructure.

CISOs need to adapt the management of enterprise security using these platforms and prepare themselves against cyber threats and attacks.

Malicious actors have evolved in the past year with the onset of remote working and threat vectors have transformed substantially due to COVID-19.

A recent poll, conducted by global consulting firm Protiviti, found that more than half of business leaders worldwide admitted that the cybersecurity risk profile has changed significantly post COVID-19.

There has been a rise in malware attacks targeting remote workforces and mobile users since the pandemic began as per a recent Deloitte study.

Apart from cybersecurity threats such as data breaches, malware and phishing attacks, the past year has seen a significant rise is ransomware attacks in enterprises.

As companies forge ahead with digital transformation, it is also important for CISOs to achieve a balance between agility and risk management.

CISOs should strengthen their enterprise security policies and plan for threats that will focus on the remote activities of end-users.

For instance, social engineering attacks on remote workers will continue to increase in the next few years, due to the ease and low cost of launching these attacks.

CISOs thus need to implement security policies that will keep them on top of security vulnerabilities and educate staff, deploy security platforms, and update systems.

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CISOs should achieve a balance between agility and risk management.

While digital transformation remains crucial, CIOs and CISOs should be prepared for all possible disruptions by threat actors. Today’s multi-device, cloud environment requires a more robust cybersecurity strategy.

Organisations should thus invest in securing the end-users’ devices and educating the staff, mainly when they are connecting to the enterprise network. CISOs also need to deploy cloudbased security monitoring platforms for their end-users.

Moreover, the adoption of AI guided security management platforms can assist with the burden of monitoring vast amount of data and traffic. AI-powered intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems can scrutinise traffic with improved accuracy, hence, decreasing the number of false alarm incidents. ë

INNOVATION

DR RYAD SOOBHANY,

Assistant Professor, Postgraduate Project Director, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai.

FOR

CISOs

l CISOs should strengthen enterprise security policies and plan for threats that will focus on remote activities of end-users. l CISOs need to implement security policies that will keep them on top of security vulnerabilities, educate staff, deploy security platforms, and update systems. l CIOs and CISOs should be prepared for all possible disruptions by threat actors. l Social engineering attacks on remote workers will continue to increase in the next few years. l Today’s multi-device, cloud environment requires a more robust cybersecurity strategy. l More than half of business leaders worldwide admitted that the cybersecurity risk profile has changed significantly post COVID-19. l The past year has seen a significant rise is ransomware attacks in enterprises.

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INNOVATION

INNOVATION

AMAZON WEB SERVICES

AVAILABILITY OF 230+ SECURITY, GOVERNANCE SERVICES Using AWS, customers can gain the control they need to securely run business with flexible and secure cloud computing environment, while benefiting from AWS datacentres.

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rganisations are choosing Amazon Web Services because of the breadth and depth of services, rate of innovation, and the most proven operational and security expertise. Our core infrastructure is built to satisfy the security requirements for military, global banks, and other high-sensitivity organisations.

This is backed by a deep set of cloud security tools, with more than 230 security, compliance, and governance services and key features. Using AWS, customers gain the control and confidence they need to securely run their business with the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available today. As an AWS customer, organisations benefit from AWS datacentres and a network architected to protect their information, identities, applications, and devices.

We believe that virtually every application will be infused with machine learning and artificial intelligence. More than 100,000 customers are running machine learning on AWS. This includes regional companies such as Aramex, Careem, Maestro Pizza, and Tarjama. AWS also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help customers protect against security threats.

One service is Amazon Macie, which uses machine learning and pattern matching to continuously recognise sensitive data. Another service is Amazon GuardDuty, which is a managed threat detection service that identifies suspected attackers through integrated threat intelligence feeds and uses machine learning to detect anomalies in account and workload activity, including access patterns to data on S3.

The role of CISOs is to help guide the board and their peer C-suite leaders as they proactively protect their brands and customers. With the exponential growth of data in today’s businesses, there has been a new emphasis on IT’s role in securing that data.

Security, which used to be more infrastructure-centric, demands a new focus on software, and technology leaders have to be deeply involved in software development and investments. At the same time, security teams also require different skills and mindsets to succeed in new domains. So, while they might be technologists first and foremost, the most successful CISOs recognise that strong security goes well beyond bits and bytes. ë

LOUAY SHAAT,

Security Specialist, Amazon Web Services.

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FOR

CISOs

l Amazon Macie uses machine learning and pattern matching to recognise sensitive data. l Amazon GuardDuty identifies suspected attackers through integrated threat intelligence feeds. l Role of CISOs is to help guide the board and their peer C-suite leaders as they proactively protect brands and customers. l With exponential growth of data, there has been a new emphasis on IT’s role in securing that data. l Security demands a new focus on software, and technology leaders have to be deeply involved in software development. l Security also requires different skills and mindsets to succeed in new domains. l Most successful CISOs recognise that strong security goes well beyond bits and bytes.

SECURITY

Thales survey finds, 6 in 10 UAE respondents say traditional tools such as VPNs still primary vehicle COVID-19 quickly ushered in the era of remote work, introducing new risks that IT professionals are struggling to manage with existing security tools, according to a new Thales study. Six in 10 UAE respondents said traditional security tools such as VPNs are still the primary vehicle for employees accessing applications remotely -- likely the reason why 87% were concerned about the security risksthreats of employees working remotely.

These are among the key insights from the 2021 Thales Access Management Index, a global survey of 2,600 IT decision makers, commissioned by Thales and conducted by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, to better understand the new security risks and challenges caused by the rise of remote working and cloud transformation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year saw a surge in cybercrime exploiting the various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote work, with ransomware attacks soaring by 150%. The

Thales survey found the pandemic’s effects have had a significant impact on security infrastructure, particularly on access management and authentication frameworks, pushing organisations to adopt modern security strategies like Zero Trust to support the demands of a more mobile and remote workforce.

According to the index, respondents have many different systems deployed for remote access. When asked about the technologies that were in place, VPN was the most common, with 60% of IT professionals identifying the capability. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, cloud-based access and Zero Trust network access-software defined perimeter ZTNA-SDP closely followed.

However, when asked what new access technologies respondents were planning to deploy due to the pandemic, nearly half 44% indicated ZTNA-SDP was the top technology choice.

Thales also explored respondents’ plans to move beyond traditional VPN environments and found that nearly 40% expect to replace

JOHN DOLEY, Director for Access Management at Thales for META region.

their VPN with ZTNA-SDP, while 38% expect to move to a Multi-Factor Authentication MFA solution. This confirms the need for more modern, sophisticated authentication capabilities is driving change in many organisations and is perceived as a key enabler of Zero Trust security.

Kaspersky survey finds 4% increase in attacks against UAE industrial control systems in 1H 2021 Cyber threats against ICS systems stand out as the most prominent. The UAE experienced a 4% increase in attacks against ICS computers during the first half of 2021 when compared to the same period last year. This stands higher than the global average which only increased by 1.2% for the same period.

Industrial control system security oversees the safeguarding and protection of control systems used for monitoring industrial

processes. Such systems are critical in keeping essential infrastructure functioning and they are increasingly under attack. The potential for critical system breakdown, production accidents, and even city-wide or national impact is increasing.

ICS security is often overlooked because the devices fall somewhere in between ICT and engineering. Cyber Security today is everyone’s concern, it is no longer an

option for the responsibility to lie with one department alone but rather across a few departments.

While this provides a broad strategic approach to ICS security, the fact remains that a customised consultation, testing, and roadmap is absolutely essential. As with any mission-critical consideration, it is sound business sense to be prepared and equipped in advance.

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REAL LIFE

His Excellency Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment, Digital Dubai.

Dubai Government to issue last paper transaction on 12th Dec says CEO of Smart Dubai Government The UAE has earmarked 29th October as its annual National Coders Day when everyone in the country is encouraged to explore their coding capabilities as the country pursues its aim of having the world’s largest per capital percentage of coders within 10 years.

His Excellency Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications highlighted the initiative at Gitex Global Leaders Vision at Dubai World Trade Centre, as well as discussing plans for the UAE’s

Department of Digital Ajman implements Trend Micro’s Tipping Point, Deep Discovery Inspector, Deep Security Software Trend Micro recognised the Department of Digital Ajman, for placing cyber security at the centre of its strategy, vision, and commitment to enhance the competitiveness of the Emirate.

During Gitex, Trend Micro presented DDA

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with a special award for its excellent contribution in championing to secure the Emirate’s digital transformation journey, in line with the Ajman vision.

The award was presented by Dr Moataz Bin

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Coders’ Society which will bring together the 60,000 coders already resident in the UAE. The Dubai Government will issue its last paper transaction on 12th December, the CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment, Digital Dubai told Gitex Global Leaders Vision. His Excellency Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment, Digital Dubai, said the date would mark the fulfilment of the Dubai Paperless Strategy launched in 2018. He said the strategy has saved 13 Million hours of manual transactions as well as 325 million sheets of paper, translating into a forest of 39,000 trees – five times the size of New York’s Central Park.

Gitex Global Leaders Vision heard His Excellency Dr Mohamed Abdelhameed Al Askar, Director General of Abu Dhabi Digital Authority, call for cross-border co-operation in maturing digital human rights. He said rights would include guaranteed access to the internet for all with digital connection being optional. He said that digital ethics legislation needs to be mature to safeguard privacy, balance freedom of speech with protection against harm to individuals, put digital fluency at the core of education, optimise digital consumer rights and cybersecurity awareness.

Ali, Vice President and Managing Director, MENA for Trend Micro to HE Mrs Dina Fares, Acting Director General at DDA, Eng. Hamad Ibrahim Al Balushi, Manager of Network, and Information Security at DDA, and Mohammad Wail Wajih Khachfa, Network Security Specialist at DDA. The global pandemic brought daunting challenges to governments across the world in protecting their digital infrastructure from cyber-attacks. To remain ahead of the curve, DDA decided to reimagine its approach to security to not only protect but also enhance the digital experience of users and customers.

After thorough evaluations and consultations on its network and datacentre protection, the entity partnered with Trend Micro to integrate a multi-layered cybersecurity strategy to combat the modern-day threat landscape.

DDA adopted solutions such as Trend Micro’s Tipping Point Threat Protection System, Deep Discovery Inspector, and Deep Security Software to protect its infrastructure, workforce, and processes – thus elevating its entire cyber security posture.

REAL LIFE

Al Ghurair using Aruba Edge Services Platform, Aruba Central to manage 75 branches, 3,500 users Aruba announced that UAE-based Al Ghurair Investment has implemented networking technology from Aruba that delivers resilient, future-ready infrastructure to accelerate digital transformation. The technology provides a scalable secure network template for consistent deployment and user experience, enables consistent wireless-first workplace with bandwidth to support critical business applications, cuts Wi-Fi deployment times from days to hours

and enables Zero Touch deployments across international operations. The deployment also reduces network costs through standardisation and consolidation.

Due to the diversified nature of the business, IT infrastructures have historically been built in business – with teams embedding individual solutions. With digital transformation a priority in each of Al Ghurair Investment’s business units, the group needed to establish

Ajman Free Zone launches GIS for vacant sites and facilities In line with its efforts to strengthen its support to the business and investment community through technological innovations, Ajman Free Zone has launched the addition of Geographical Information System into its digital services.

The step is in line with AFZ’s commitment to integrating GIS programs in the business system, projects, applications, and operations to facilitate the customer’s journey, enhance the

a singular network approach. The company wanted central oversight, tighter integration between business units and the means to graft new applications onto the network.

The network now hosts 3,500 office users using Microsoft Teams and the plan is to roll out to Al Ghurair Investment’s warehouses, factories, and production sites. It will also be adopted by the company’s international offices, outside of the Middle East region. The networks enable seamless mobility across all Al Ghurair Investment offices. Employees can work from any office with the network automatically recognising and authenticating them. This improves the ability of teams from different group businesses to meet and collaborate.

The cloud-native and service-oriented Aruba Edge Services Platform was fully aligned with the company’s vision for its digital future and unique requirements. Aruba Central enables the unified management of wired and wireless infrastructure and delivers AI-powered insights, workflow automation and robust security, all as subscribed services.

The engagement establishes consistency across Al Ghurair Investment’s network architecture. It also brings network infrastructure in line with other shared services across the group. The project has strengthened data security. Aruba ClearPass ensures consistent policy-based governance in terms of the types of users and devices that can access each part of the network and gives visibility of network activity.

satisfaction level of business partners, and enhance the business attractiveness and competitiveness of the Emirate of Ajman.

The Geographical Information System offers a complete package of integrated services that provide customers with direct access to accurate information about AFZ’s sites, with a map that shows vacant areas including all related facilities and nearby locations.

The system also includes 360-degree images for evaluation and virtual inspection of the site before booking it and a virtual-navigation assistant. Further, it allows virtual and actual interaction with AFZ’s robot known as Ghaith, and the GPS services can be used in locating public places. The system is compatible with the customer portal and the website.

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IBM and partner ACME SAIC digitise and automate 22 silos in Egypt’s wheat supply chain IBM in collaboration with business partner ACME SAICO, announced automation of 22 wheat silos across Egypt by the end of this year using IBM AI-powered automation software.

This supports the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade’s plans to digitise the wheat supply chain and implement governance systems on the country’s strategic stock.

In line with the national plan for digital transformation, the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade represented by the Egyptian Holding Company for Silos and Storage selected IBM and ACME SAICO to create a platform powered by IBM’s AI-powered automation software in a hybrid cloud environment.

Using IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation and IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, the new solution will allow full automation and governance of all the steps of shipping, transport, storage, and supply of the wheat silos.

Through this advanced technology, the automated platform collects data from different sensors that are embedded in the silos. These sensors send near real-time quantitative analyt-

ics of the wheat supply and stock status to the main platform at the Ministry of Supply.

Thus, the EHCSS will be able to monitor and store all information related to the incoming shipments to maintain quality standards, report accurate views of the stock in silos, as well as reduce the leakage in wheat silos extensively. The system will also help to better manage the communication and coordination between different storage points, and mills.

Earlier this year, the launch of the pilot model for the first automated wheat silo took place in Banha, Qualyubia Governorate.

Following the success of the pilot, the Ministry decided to expand automation to 22 silos before the end of this year. All silos will be monitored from the Ministry headquarters and the General Authority for Supply Commodities through IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson connected to the automation platform in use.

As part of the sustainable development strategy of Egypt’s vision for 2030, the government is planning to automate 400 silos adding them to the wheat supply chain monitoring system.

Japan based Chugoku Bank secures mobile application with Kaspersky software development kit To safeguard the security of data and transactions across its new Chugin mobile banking app aimed at private customers, Chugoku Bank, has adopted Kaspersky Mobile Security software development kit. With the financial sector demanding highly secure applications and systems to protect company and customer data, the Kaspersky solution not only provides this peace of mind but rich functionality and usability.

The prevalence of mobile banking apps has risen over the past 18 months due to the pandemic, with many more customers turning to apps to make payments, check their bal-

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WAEL ABDOUSH, General Manager, IBM Egypt.

ance and transfer funds as physical buildings closed and restrictions on movement were imposed. However, as user numbers have risen, so too have the tactics of cybercriminals looking to exploit customers and banks, with fake apps, Trojans and malware attacks all increasing.

Kaspersky Mobile Security SDK is a software development kit that allows for easy implementation of security functionality in mobile apps. While the SDK is used globally, it is the first time it has been adopted within the Japanese market. Chugoku Bank selected the Kaspersky Mobile Security SDK primarily because of the varied security functionality on offer, including measures to safeguard against phishing and fake apps and features for malware detection and data protection. The Bank also cited the high cost-performance offered through licensing, which was a key requirement in the tender process.

REAL LIFE

the implementation of new systems and processes that will drive the brand’s innovative approach to boat and yacht manufacturing - from prototyping, to production and delivery of the vessel to the owner.

As part of the first phase of digital transformation, Gulf Craft will deploy the RISE with SAP solution that includes customer relationship management, project and portfolio management, and supply chain solutions running on the Microsoft Azure cloud. In the second phase, SAP Ariba digital procurement solutions and the SAP SuccessFactors human experience management suite will be rolled out. The SAP Teamcenter

by Siemens solution will also provide integrated product lifecycle management that leverages Industry 4.0 capabilities.

Founded in the United Arab Emirates in 1982, Gulf Craft has three facilities in the UAE and the Maldives and has a manufacturing capacity of 200 boats per year. The company has built more than 10,000 boats already, serving clients around the world.

Gulf Craft’s brands include its flagship Majesty; Silvercraft featuring affordable smaller family and fishing boats; Oryx sports cruisers; Nomad explorer yachts and Touring Passenger Vessels.

Gulf Craft implementing SAP RISE, Ariba, SuccessFactors, to help optimise customer journey Gulf Craft, a boat and yacht manufacturer, announced a strategic digital transformation partnership with global technology company, SAP, which will revolutionise the experience of

its customers all over the world. The partnership will support the on-going expansion of Gulf Craft across the world.

The digital transformation will include

Saudi’s AlMalki Group using Salesforce, Mulesoft for its transformation journey Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced that AlMalki Group, a Saudi-based family-owned group, which will celebrate its 70-year anniversary in 2022, and which specialises in the luxury retail and distribution market, is digitally transforming the Gulf Cooperation Council $29 billion e-commerce market.

As a younger, technology savvy, and globalised population grows in the region, more customers are desiring the convenience, and data-driven omni-channel capabilities of e-commerce. As a result, the GCC’s e-commerce market is growing at 20% CAGR and is set to reach $29 billion in 2021, according to a recent report by Kearney.

AlMalki Group, one of Saudi Arabia’s most storied retail conglomerates, has more than 65 years of experience. The company counts more than 1,100 employees and represents more than 105 international brands both online and

in boutiques. Supporting e-commerce innovation, the company is deploying a wide range of solutions to transform customer experiences.

AlMalki Group is using Salesforce solutions such as the Service Cloud to interact with customers by email, phone, social media, and WhatsApp; Marketing Cloud to drive personalisation and marketing automation; and Commerce Cloud to build rich, Artificial Intelligence-powered shopping experiences for their partner brands.

AlMalki Group used MuleSoft to build a single view of the customer across Salesforce and other disparate systems, so that it could deliver omni-channel experiences faster. The Salesforce Content Management System CMS allows for curating and sharing content in multiple languages.

In the future, AlMalki Group aims to adopt the Salesforce Customer Data Platform to fully integrate its cloud solutions, its content

THIERRY NICAULT, Area Vice President, Middle East and North Africa, Salesforce.

management system, and its social media platforms.

As part of its digital transformation, AlMalki Group is working with the channel partner Emakina. AlMalki Group also leveraged MuleSoft Catalyst services, which provide unique methodology, templates and assets for AlMalki Group to achieve business outcomes faster.

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Cameras using AI halved number of road fatalities in Saudi Arabia, says Ministry of Interior Cameras utilising artificial intelligence have helped halve the number of road fatalities in Saudi Arabia and reduce injuries by almost a third- 32% over the past three years, a leading tech expert from the kingdom said on day two of the Gitex Global Leaders Vision conference, a brand-new conference series as part of Gitex Global 2021 at Dubai World Trade Centre.

Sultan Al Mutairi, Head of Vision Realisa-

tion Office, Ministry of Interior, got things underway at the conference by giving an overview of the Ministry’s role with Saudi Vision 2030.

Speaking as part of the day’s agenda, Dr Abdul Rahman Alarifi, General Manager of Systems Engineering at the Saudi Technology and Security Compliance Control Company, said artificial intelligence has increased

Abu Dhabi Department of Education demonstrates smart licensing for nurseries, schools at Gitex Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge will leverage this week’s Gitex Global 2021 - the industry’s largest interconnected technology platform - to spotlight four ICT-related projects and initiatives driving innovation and digital transforma-

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tion across the Emirate’s education sector.

During Gitex Global, which runs at Dubai World Trade Centre, ADEK showcases its Service Catalog, a unique digital gateway for stakeholders including parents, schools, and industry partners. Providing access to and

road safety compliance in the Kingdom and more advanced technology solutions will be introduced in the coming year.

Key successes, he said, included achieving 99% compliance on the non-use of mobiles while driving, a five-fold increase in adhering to seat belt laws and a tripling of adherence to truck exclusion regulations.

“This is the greatest application of artificial intelligence that affects daily life in the Kingdom,” Dr Alarifi said.

Following the life-changing adoption of advanced technology, Alarifi said new AI solutions are now being progressed in Tahakom’s research and development labs to further improve driver behaviour in the Kingdom, including vehicle motion violation monitoring, systems to check highway and road conditions and smart checkpoints. “We hope to have these solutions available within the next year,” he said.

Dr Alarifi said Tahakom is leading the charge in fostering homegrown tech talent, with 60 young, talented Saudi nationals now working across its AI operations. Dr Al Shoaili said the programme is part of national efforts to diversify Oman’s economy and promote research and innovation in the Sultanate where advanced technology competencies are viewed as “enablers to improve the competitive capabilities of the national economy in line with Oman’s 2040 vision.”

management of all ADEK services, the automated system assures process transparency via a centralised list of internal and external services provided by ADEK’s multifaceted divisions, directing users to tailored solutions to their requirements.

ADEK also presents its smart Licensing System, which enables nurseries, Private, and Charter Schools to submit new service requests, and track and manage licensing-related applications. The smart system utilises optical character recognition technology which enhances operations to ensure higher efficiency and faster service delivery for stakeholders.

Finally, as part of ADEK’s presence in the Abu Dhabi Government pavilion, Marcos Muller-Habig, Chief Technology Officer at revolutionary coding school 42 Abu Dhabi, will host a talk to explore the disruptive school’s tuition-free peer-topeer learning methodology on October 19.

REAL LIFE

Airbus will test public safety critical networks between territories of two Gulf nations The Secretariat General of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Airbus signed a Memorandum of Understanding MoU at the ongoing Expo 2020 Dubai to boost cross-border security coordination and communication between GCC nations, starting with a first proof of concept implementation between 2 of the members.

The proof-of-concept agreement, signed on the 3rd October at the GCC’s exhibition stand at the Expo, will allow Airbus to test the interconnection of Public Safety Critical networks on, and between the territories of two Gulf nations.

The MoU was signed by Maj Gen Hazaa Ben Mbarek El Hajri, Assistant Secretary of Security Affairs, Secretariat General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Selim Bouri, Head of Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific for Secure Land Communications at Airbus.

ANILESH KUMAR, EVP Business Applications, InTWO.

InTWO to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 at Euro Mechanical to automate business processes The UAE is projected to see a gradual demand recovery in the energy sector, with the current project pipeline sits at more than $670bn, seeing increasing investments in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors that are expected to drive the oil and gas market.

To streamline its operations to enable them to meet the growing demands of the energy sector; Euro Mechanical, a leading service provider has selected InTWO to support its strategic growth plans.

InTWO’s formerly Levtech Consulting team will be deploying Microsoft Dynamics 365, a cloud-based ERP solution that would automate Euro Mechanical’s entire business processes, allowing them to provide better customer experience through enhanced data analytics, customer relationship management, resource planning, and inventory management.

600 partner hotels from ResNet World to adopt D-EDGE’s CRS and MediaGenius D-EDGE Hospitality Solutions, a leading provider of SaaS and digital marketing solutions for hoteliers, announces a new partnership with ResNet World. Thanks to this agreement, the 600 hotels of the network will migrate to D-EDGE’s CRS and will benefit from MediaGenius, the first multi digital media platform dedicated to hoteliers.

Over the last 24 months D-EDGE has accelerated the development of its offering with the addition of a Central Data Management Platform offer, the launch of the first multi digital media management platform for hotels and has developed connectivity with more than 50 additional partners, third-party solutions. The addition of ResNet hotels to its customer portfolio is a strong endorsement of D-EDGE’s technology and of the company’s ability to serve the growth and ambition of hotel chains.

GUEST COLUMN

DAVID NOËL,

GVP EMEAR at AppDynamics.

ARRIVAL OF THE TOTAL APPLICATION EXPERIENCE

People have had their eyes opened to how digital services can perform in 2021 and now expect this same level of quality each time they use an application.

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GUEST COLUMN

F

or the past 18 months, consumers in the UAE have relied on digital services across almost every part of their lives, from grocery shopping and healthcare, through to fitness classes and entertainment. For many of us, applications have enabled us to navigate through the most difficult period of our lives.

Our recent consumer study, The App Attention Index 2021: Who takes the rap for the app? found that people around the world are using, on average, 30% more applications than they were prior to the pandemic.

This huge increase in usage of digital services, combined with the seismic improvements that many brands have made to their online offering during the pandemic, has meant that millions of consumers have suddenly been exposed to the very best applications, across a whole range of sectors. They have been wowed by the most intuitive and personalised digital services and enjoyed the massive benefits these applications have delivered to them.

People have had their eyes opened to how digital services can perform in 2021 and, unsurprisingly, they now expect this same level

demanding more from brands is around performance, with 98% of people in the Emirates reporting that their expectations for consistent and reliable performance have risen over the last 18 months.

For application owners who now find themselves in a never-ending innovation race, to deliver the next compelling digital experience to customers, this is an important point to note.

Yes, consumers now demand exciting digital experiences, and they want these experiences to be tailored to their own individual requirements, but more than anything else, they just want applications to perform as they should, each and every time.

In a world where people have come to rely on applications as a lifeline to normality, performance and reliability should never be overlooked as the cornerstone for the total application experience.

Application owners need to approach performance in its broadest sense The stakes around digital experience has risen inexorably during the last 18 months. On the one hand, where businesses have delivered

98%

of people in the Emirates are reporting their expectations for consistent performance has risen over the last 18 months of quality each time they use an application.

Our research found that people in the UAE have become more sophisticated in how they use applications and more discerning about the digital services they use. Consumers now want the total application experience every time — a high-performing, reliable, digital service, which is simple, secure, helpful and fun to use. And they want these services to be personalised to their own individual needs and preferences and to genuinely enhance their lives.

Expectations around digital services have risen across the board, in areas such as data security and privacy, personalisation, communication and loyalty. Interestingly though, the single area where UAE consumers are now

a high-performing total application experience, consumers feel hugely grateful and loyal towards these brands and are more likely to engage and transact with them again in the future.

However, where brands fail to meet these new, heightened expectations, consumers are now totally unforgiving. 75% of UAE consumers, 14% higher than the global average, state their expectation of digital services has changed forever and they will not tolerate poor performance any more, and 73% of people, 16% higher than the global average, say brands have one shot to impress them and that if their digital service does not perform, they won’t use them again.

Application owners are living on a knife edge — one slip-up and they risk seeing more than half of their customers turning their backs on them.

But if this isn’t worrying enough, what should really be ringing alarm bells in IT departments today is the fact that UAE consumers no longer have any regard as to why an application is not working as it should. When they encounter a problem, customers are not interested in the root cause of the issue; they just automatically point the finger of blame at the application — and the brand behind it.

In some cases, this might be justified, when performance issues are directly related to the application, whether that is pages loading slowly, poor response times, downtime, or security failures. But consumers are now also blaming application owners when digital experience is affected by external factors outside the application — such as bad internet connectivity, 4G-5G mobile network issues, slow payment gateways or technical issues with third party plug-ins.

For application owners, this will seem an unfair and impossible situation, but this is the reality they need to face up to, where 69% of UAE consumers believe it’s always the responsibility of the brand to ensure that the digital service or application works perfectly.

In order to respond to this heightened level of expectation and to manage the business risks of performance issues, technologists need unified, real-time visibility of IT performance across their entire IT estate, including cloud environments. Without this genuine full-stack observability, they simply do not stand a chance of being able to quickly identify and fix performance issues before they impact end users.

But even with full-stack observability in place, technologists can find themselves overwhelmed by the deluge of performance data that is continually coming at them. This is why it’s so important to link IT performance with real-time business metrics, so technologists can immediately understand which issues could have the biggest impact on customers and prioritise their actions accordingly.

Full-stack observability with business context enables technologists to move beyond the constant firefighting and take a more proactive and holistic approach to application performance. And this is absolutely critical in this new consumer landscape where performance and reliability are the essential foundations for digital experience and brand loyalty. ë

GUEST COLUMN

SCOTT MCKINNON,

Principal Security Architect, VMware EMEA.

WHO IS THE DECISION MAKER FOR SECURITY, IT, DEVELOPERS?

Security was always aligned to IT, but should we now be seeing a shift in its priorities towards developers, away from firewalls to secure app building.

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GUEST COLUMN

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ustomer experience is the single most important commercial focus for businesses today. And it is the rapidity of being able to deliver this experience that’s setting successful companies apart. Delivering quality, innovative and secure products and services, at speed, is the great differentiator in attracting and retaining customers, and in responding to market demands.

Today, almost regardless of company size or market sector, this is dependent on an organisation’s technology teams – security, IT and developers – being aligned and working together.

Security, in particular, needs to deliver for and align to the rest of the business. Modern, distributed organisations now need security to be put everywhere – not just built in but built differently. Built for the accelerated, post Covid-19 sprint towards digital transformation that has also rapidly expanded the threat landscape.

Yet, the extent to which the relationship between security, developer and IT teams needs to improve is significant. According to recent research with Forrester, 61% of IT teams

priority for IT and security teams being operational efficiency considered most important by 52% of both respondent groups.

In contrast, development teams prioritise improving the user experience 50%, which is only fourth for IT and security teams, while preventing security breaches is second for both IT and security, yet only fifth for developers.

This lack of alignment is perhaps understandable – developers tend to be slightly siloed, in that their priority is the end customer.

Their success, typically, is rooted in building an attractive application, as quickly as possible, to position the business as first to market: creating the next big thing and doing it before anyone else. Once there’s a product that works, then the security of it becomes a focus. This is now accepted as too late in the day.

But even this raises more questions than it answers, principally the question of a common language. The user of a developer, for example, is the end customer - where the revenue comes from - whereas the user for IT and security is traditionally considered internal. And crucially, security means significantly different things to

It is currently a wild west of ownership, fuelling the lack of strategic alignment between these teams

and 52% of developers currently consider security a roadblock to their innovation, while just one in five developers even understand which security policies they are expected to comply with.

Senior leaders are more focused now on development and security relationships, but one in three are still not effectively collaborating or taking strides to strengthen them.

WHERE DOES THE DISCONNECT LIE? A lack of common goals between security, IT and developers has long been an issue, one being exacerbated by the potential complexity of today’s multi-cloud, modern app world.

The recent study reveals that teams are not all aligned to customers, with the number one

these three teams.

To developers, it’s security of application code and supporting secure communication protocols HTTPS everywhere; to IT it’s the security of the infrastructure and lifecycle development; to the business security means the safety of staff, the building they work in, and the protection of data.

So, it is not just that priorities are misaligned, it is that the fundamental terminology with which these priorities are even talked about, does not translate across the teams. The conversation on alignment is not just overdue, it is being discussed in different languages within the business.

When it comes to realising this change, it needs to start at the top. Who is the chief decision maker for security, IT and developers? The

reality is this varies wildly, different reporting lines, different lines of business, different levels of representation at a board level. Security was always aligned to IT. But should we now be seeing a shift in its priorities towards developers, away from firewalls to secure app building – as the latter becomes a strategic driver of business innovation? It’s currently a wild west of ownership, fuelling the lack of strategic alignment between these teams.

Aligning the priorities, under the responsibility of a single seat at the table – a digital transformation officer or similar – will be vital in bringing the teams together in vision, strategy and execution. It will encourage the sharing of, and alignment on, KPIs. And it will help empower these teams to collectively sell within the business – to get funding, to convince their internal customers to engage with products and solutions, and to change the dynamic from responding to change to proactively driving it.

The good news is there’s recognition that shared team priorities and engagement is the way forward. More than half 53% of respondents expect security and development teams to be unified two-three years from now, and those that believe obstacles prevent this unification are set to reduce from 49% to 28% in the next few years.

Forty-two percent expect security to become more embedded in the development process in two-three years’ time, and there’s a broader acknowledgment that cross-team alignment empowers businesses to reduce team silos 71%, create more secure applications 70% and increase agility to adopt new workflows & technologies 66%.

There’s also recognition that security is so much more than just an insurance policy. It can empower development teams to accomplish their goals in the most secure and successful ways rather than hindering innovation and creating security hurdles to bypass.

Continuing and accelerating this progress needs to be a priority for the leaders of business.

The relationships between these three teams have a major impact on organisations, and their alignment delivers more resilient apps, greater responsiveness to market conditions, and continuous compliance.

Yes, security needs to rethink its processes to further embrace the teams it supports. But IT, security and developers must all come together in support of a future state; one where customer focus, powered by a systematic approach and senior ownership, unites the technology teams and empowers them to drive the business forward. ë

TOP EXECUTIVE

CONTINUING TO DRIVE TRANSFORMATION AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT Security was always aligned to IT, but should we now be seeing a shift in its priorities towards developers, away from firewalls to secure app building.

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FAHAD AL HASSAWI,

Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company.

LOCATION UAE

GOALS AND STRENGTHS Al Hassawi has led the transformation of du by achieving revenue targets, enabling greater customer engagement, and increasing du’s market share by creating seamless customer journeys that are focused on the end-to-end customer experience. Under his leadership, du streamlined how business units interact with optimised service delivery, operations, finance, and central service hubs.

l Hassawi is responsible for overseeing telecom operations of du and Virgin brands’ digital lifestyle and innovation divisions, overseeing infrastructure development, technology and network investment, and continued 5G rollout. He is committed to driving innovation, accelerating digital transformation, and creating a fearless and industry-leading telecommunications organisation.

Al Hassawi has been with EITC since 2006 in various capacities including Chief Commercial Officer at du and Deputy CEO of EITC overseeing telecom operations, including du and Virgin brands. He assumed the role of Acting Chief Executive Officer in September 2020, and ever since has guided the organisation into two consecutive quarters of growth. du and the technology arm of the Digital Dubai initiative have collaborated together to launch a paperless property rental platform to automate business processes between four connected UAE entities. Available through du Blockchain Edge and Dubai Pulse, all services are linked to a digital tenancy contract through the solution, which will be received within a few minutes following completion of the digital application. du Blockchain Edge provides seamless digital experiences and solutions, guaranteeing scalability and empowering individuals, enterprises, and govern-

ment entities to contribute to the UAE’s knowledge-based journey which supports the UAE Blockchain Strategy 2021, as well as the Dubai Paperless Strategy. du’s AI solutions help to future-proof operating models and support business challenges, ensuring maximum value generation in customers’ AI adoption journey.

The telco’s UAE hosted Blockchain Platform – Blockchain Edge on Dubai Pulse also transforms and empowers organisations across the UAE. du offers a multi-tenant platform with on-premise or cloud-based integration capabilities, with a readily available plug-in suite for AI, ML, and business automation enablement.

In addition to the du Cyber Defense Center that was launched earlier this year, du also officially opened two new data centers that will equip enterprises across the UAE with next-generation digital infrastructure in Kizad Abu Dhabi and DSO Dubai.

Furthermore, du’s products, solutions, and platforms are also backed by 5G. Following the initial rollout out in 2019, du’s 5G network today covers 85% of the UAE’s population. du cloud migration services provide discovery, assessment, design and planning to ensure users have an efficient and optimised approach to the cloud. Its management services help enterprises bridge the cloud talent gap and focus on their core business. ë

M c

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