CXO DX February 2021 by LeapMediaSolutions

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» EDITORIAL

A BRAVER NEW WORLD The year of the pandemic threw open the floodgates for quicker adoption of new technologies that were seeing a relatively slower uptake until last year. Certainly, over the past year, cloud delivered services have taken off as the definitive form of IT infrastructure compared to on premises IT. More transformative technologies could be breaking through our resistance thresholds and gaining our trust in the not so distant future. Bitcoin’s recent and continuing rally to unbelievable high valuation in recent weeks underlines the possibility that cryptocurrencies sooner than later could gain acceptance in more types of financial transactions within the next few years. That is because more institutional investors seem to be backing cryptocurrencies now. The world may also come around to accepting multiple cyryptocurrencies in future though Bitcoin seems to be quite far ahead at the moment. On the other hand, a few countries have banned private cryptocurrencies and some may issue their own. For the moment though, there is great uncertainty and some volatility as can be expected with the coming of disruptive technologies. While 2020 saw remote based working and collaboration gain wider acceptance and soon become a norm, there are more technologies that are being developed, which could further enhance such remote collaborations. Stretching beyond the current applications around AR and VR, holoportation, seeks to create a virtual replica of a person and project into another space and is a technology that could see light of day in the next few years in terms of wider applications. Companies including Microsoft and some start-ups are working on the technology which could have applications for several verticals including healthcare, education, conferences etc sometime, within the next few years. In 2021, we finally have vaccines that would potentially protect us against the Covid-19 virus but we are not fully in the clear with newer variants emerging. With some uncertainty expected to continue, for a good part of the current year, the hybrid or the blended model of engagements will be the norm. From that context, we must continue to be receptive to new technologies that will serve us better in the future.

R. Narayan

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Pooja Panjwani Assistant Project Manager

Co-Founder & MD

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MALLIKA REGO Co-Founder & Director Client Solutions

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RAMAN NARAYAN

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Editor in Chief, CXO DX

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REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City | www.cxodx.com FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» CONTENTS INTERVIEW

20 » SECURING ORGANIZATIONS Jawad Toukna, Director of Regional Sales, MENA, Forcepoint elaborates on Forcepoint’s behavior-based solutions

22 » TOTAL SECURITY

Avinash Advani,Founder & CEO at CyberKnight discusses the company’s approach to cybersecurity distribution

COVER FEATURE

16 » ENABLING DIGITAL ENTERPRISES

D-Link continues to constantly introduce new innovations in its networking solutions portfolio and with its broad portfolio enables Businesses, ranging from SMB to the enterprise on their digital transformation journeys.

NEWS INSIGHT

11 » HYBRID CLOUD IS STILL THE FRONTRUNNER AS THE IDEAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE

INSIGHT

26 » THREE WAYS LOW-CODE NO-CODE CAN INCREASE ROI Dan Matthews, CTO, IFS discusses how to enable successful low-code no-code environments

28 » PROTECTING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE ERA OF CYBER INFORMATION WARFARE Edwin Weijdema from Veeam shares why data protection and cybersecurity technologies can help protect human rights

12 » ACCELERATING TO THE NEW NORMAL

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

30 » MANAGING SECURITY RISKS THAT IMPACT DIGITAL BUSINESS

Courtney Radke, Retail CISO,Fortinet says the onus is on the businesses to enable secure transactions

32 » MAKING SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE PIECES OF THE CYBERSECURITY PUZZLE

Brian Pinnock, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast discusses the four elements of cybersecurity

34 » OVERCOMING ‘WORK FROM HOME’ SECURITY CHALLENGES Krupa Srivatsan from Infoblox writes about security beyond the VPN

CIO OUTLOOK

Challenged by the pandemic, organizations have come to deploy transformation technologies sooner than otherwise

REGULARS

06 » NEWS 36 » TECHSHOW 38 » TRENDS & STATS

» NEWS

ESET LAUNCHES NEW CLOUD-BASED ENDPOINT SECURITY MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

The solution provides a cloud-based console for managing ESET security solutions deployed with real-time visibility options: on-premises and cloud. ESET PROTECT Cloud is the new cornerstone for security management in ESET’s cloudbased business offering, capable of catering to organizations of all sizes. The introduction of ESET PROTECT Cloud reflects the well-recognized shift in the security landscape from on-premises security software solutions to cloud-based services. ESET recognizes that many businesses are moving toward a “cloud first” approach, so a security software offering that aligns with this strategy is essential.

Ignacio Sbampato

Chief Business Officer, ESET ESET has announced the launch of its new endpoint security management platform, ESET PROTECT, in selected countries. The new solution brings easy and automated management of ESET’s wide portfolio of security solutions with two deployment

ESET PROTECT Cloud provides a cloudbased console for managing ESET security solutions deployed in a network with real-time visibility into both on-premises and off-premises endpoints. The console allows IT administrators to deploy ESET security solutions, execute tasks, enforce security policies, monitor system status, and quickly respond to problems or detections on

managed endpoints across all platforms, including desktops, servers, virtual machines, and even mobile devices. In addition to integration for security information and event management (SIEM) tools, comprehensive reporting, and a fully customizable notification system, ESET PROTECT Cloud allows IT administrators to take immediate action against incidents. The console allows users to manage existing ESET products, including ESET Endpoint Security, ESET Dynamic Threat Defense, and ESET Full Disk Encryption. Customers of ESET Cloud Administrator will be automatically and seamlessly upgraded to ESET PROTECT Cloud. To ensure businesses of all sizes are equipped with the right solutions, ESET is offering a selection of subscriptions tailored to the specific business needs of home offices, SMBs, managed services providers (MSPs), and enterprises

SAP’S NEW LAUNCH ‘RISE WITH SAP’ OFFERS BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION AS A SERVICE Offered on a subscription basis, it features one responsible party for service-level agreement, operations and support SAP has announced RISE with SAP, an offering to enable its customers’ holistic transformation into intelligent enterprises. According to the company, RISE with SAP offers customers at all stages of digital transformation a completely new way to redesign processes for better business outcomes. Along with its robust partner ecosystem, SAP will deliver fast time to value, and flexibility to thrive amid change — all without high up-front investments. The announcement to deliver business transformation as a service was made during RISE with SAP: The Introduction, where SAP also unveiled plans to make a strategic acquisition in the business process intelligence space. “Geopolitical tensions, environmental challenges and the ongoing pandemic are forcing businesses to deal with change faster than ever before,” said Christian

help them achieve this. This is what RISE with SAP is all about: it helps customers continuously unlock new ways of running businesses in the cloud to stay ahead of their industry.”

Christian Klein

Chief Executive Officer, SAP Klein, chief executive officer, SAP. “Companies that can adapt their business processes quickly will thrive — and SAP can

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

RISE with SAP is a single offering that provides a path to the Intelligent Enterprise for every customer, independent of starting point or complexity. Offered on a subscription basis, it features one responsible party for service-level agreement, operations and support. The holistic approach will help companies truly transform their business, going beyond a technical migration to the cloud to enable continual transformation. Together with its strong partner ecosystem, SAP will guide companies through their business transformation by redesigning business processes, enabling technical migration and building an intelligent enterprise.

» NEWS

RESEARCH REVEALS IT PROFESSIONALS’ GROWING CONFIDENCE IN PUBLIC CLOUD Organizations face growing constraints when it comes to cloud access Barracuda has released key findings from a report titled Cloud networks: Shifting into hyperdrive. Commissioned by Barracuda, the research surveyed global IT decision makers to capture their attitudes and opinions about public cloud, access constraints, security concerns, emerging solutions, and a variety of related topics. Overall, the findings indicate that although IT professionals are gaining confidence in the cloud, organizations face growing constraints when it comes to cloud access. Highlights from the report include: • IT professionals are gaining confidence in the cloud. • More than three-quarters of respondents use multiple cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. • Nearly 80% say their organization has deployed an Azure-based network. • Organizations face growing constraints when it comes to cloud access.

• 56% of respondents are struggling to ensure seamless availability and “always-on” access to cloud applications for their organizations. • Nearly 70% experience latency and performance issues running SaaS workloads, such as Office 365. • Current network infrastructure is growing increasingly costly. • More than 70% of respondents are using traditional access methods, such as MPLS, in their organization’s network. • More than 60% say their MPLS costs increase heavily due to seasonal workload peaks. • IT professionals are looking for easier and more economical connectivity. • More than 70% of respondents have plans to implement an SD-WAN solution in the next 12 months to address cloud-connectivity issues. • At the same time, nearly 60% say their organization is hesitant to adopt an SDWAN solution because of fears that they

Klaus Gheri

VP, Network Security, Barracuda. are complex and expensive. “As organizations continue to radically transform their infrastructures and rely more on the public cloud, they are uncovering new connectivity and security challenges,” said Klaus Gheri, VP, Network Security, Barracuda. “But by embracing highly-flexible SASE solutions, organizations of all sizes and types can improve connectivity, simplify management, and strengthen security.”

GO SMART SOLUTIONS MIGRATES TO IBM CLOUD TO ACCELERATE CUSTOMER TRANSFORMATION Go Smart Solutions is now able to provide its customers with digital solutions as a service Solutions now benefits from the industry’s most secure and open cloud platform. The IBM Cloud offers sophisticated encryption capabilities such as “keep your own key” and confidential computing – so that not even IBM can access clients’ data. “ity.” Go Smart Solutions also benefits from enhanced business continuity and uninterrupted operations. IBM Cloud also offers access to AI and IoT.

IBM announced that Go Smart Solutions, a software development company in Saudi Arabia, has selected IBM Cloud to transform its operations. The transition also aims to help Go Smart Solutions’ customers accelerate their digital transformation and expedite their hybrid cloud strategies. Founded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Go Smart Solutions serves customers locally as well as in the UAE, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. As part of its transformation strategy, the company recently migrated its production environment to IBM’s public cloud to meet its critical need for infrastructure performance and enterprise-grade security, support business growth and provide an enhanced and uninterrupted experience to its customers. By hosting its production environment on IBM Cloud, Go Smart Solutions is now

Hossam Seif El-Din

GM, IBM Middle East & Pakistan able to provide its customers with digital solutions as a service with a cloud-based subscription model, enabling businesses to opt for the services they require. Through its cloud adoption, Go Smart

“Companies of all sizes and industries are in their digital transformation journey. The pandemic accelerated these journeys,” said Hossam Seif El-Din, GM, IBM Middle East and Pakistan. “Through IBM Cloud, Go Smart Solutions is able to reshape its operations to differentiate itself from the competition and serve its customers and their agendas in a fast, uninterrupted and secure manner.”

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» NEWS

COMMVAULT DEBUTS NEW SAAS, HYBRID CLOUD WORKLOADS Metallic adds new support for Salesforce backup, Microsoft Teams, Oracle Databases, Active Directory, and HyperScale X for Metallic ty and doubling its product offerings. Recent additions include hybrid cloud data protection solutions for SAP HANA and Kubernetes, in addition to the new enhancements:

Commvault has announced another expansion of its award-winning Metallic Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) portfolio. On the heels of last quarter’s accelerated innovation, Metallic is adding new data protection solutions, features, and enterprise workload support including: enhanced SaaS application protection with the introduction of Metallic Salesforce Backup and Microsoft Teams recovery enhancements; the addition of Oracle and Active Directory to Metallic Database Backup; and the expansion of its hybrid cloud capabilities with the addition of HyperScale X as a fully integrated appliance and edge offering for Metallic. Manoj Nair, General Manager, Metallic said, “With our new offerings like Salesforce and Oracle backup and our unique SaaS Plus capabilities, Metallic solutions offer customers what no other cloud-delivered backup service can match: the most comprehensive portfolio of BaaS solutions and the flexibility to backup

Metallic Salesforce Backup provides customers scalable, enterprise-grade SaaS data protection for the Salesforce Sales, Service, and Financial Cloud. It offers simple protection for valuable Salesforce data with unlimited retention, unlimited storage, and hardened security controls built-in.

Manoj Nair

General Manager, Metallic each data source to the optimal storage target--whether that be cloud or on-premises storage, or the new HyperScale X for Metallic at the edge for ultimate performance with BaaS simplicity.” Metallic has made global availability a top priority, tripling its country availabili-

Metallic Office 365 & Teams Backup & Recovery now builds on Metallic’s existing Microsoft Teams capabilities to include in-place restore of Teams conversations and other data. This enables administrators to granularly recover data stored within Teams, channels, and conversations, with better speed and precision while maintaining existing site structures and settings.

HUAWEI SIGNS AN EXCLUSIVE PARTNERSHIP WITH EROS GROUP TO DISTRIBUTE IDEAHUB IN THE UAE The productivity tool for smart offices bundles intelligent writing, High Definition (HD) video conferencing and wireless sharing Huawei, a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices, signed a partnership agreement with the Eros Group, appointing them as the distributor for the Huawei IdeaHub series in the UAE. The agreement was signed at an event in the Intercontinental Festival City in Dubai in the presence of senior officials from both organizations, system integrators, resellers, and customers. The Huawei IdeaHub can create an all-scenario smart office for the cloud era, and boost production efficiency for enterprises. It is an innovative productivity tool that integrates multiple functions to create an intelligent endpoint for users. Features include intelligent handwriting, 4K wireless projection, video conferencing, and the open Android AppGallery, making it an ideal addition for collaborative spaces, such as meeting rooms, executive offices, and more. Differentiated from other Interactive Flat Panel Displays,

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

Huawei IdeaHub cares most about user experience. By featuring the 35ms lowest writing latency and intelligent recognition capability, it enables the smoothest writing experience. AI technology is comprehensively adopted to develop features such as virtual Acoustic Baffle, auto-framing, and voice tracking. Therefore with 20 kHz full band audio, and an array of 12 microphones embedded, it picks up human voices during a video conference in a radius of 8 meters crystal clear and accurately locate the source of the speaker with precision of half degree.

» NEWS

MINDWARE SIGNS PARTNERSHIP WITH RUBRIK FOR MENA REGION The distribution agreement covers Rubrik’s entire product portfolio, comprising cloud data management, cloud backup and recovery, security and compliance and NoSQL database protection Mindware announced an agreement with Rubrik to promote and distribute Rubrik’s solutions through its vast reseller network across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This new partnership and the addition of Rubrik’s best-in-class data management solutions for Microsoft 365 applications and Azure cloud environments also positions Mindware to provide increased value as a strategic Microsoft distributor. “Cloud computing is seen today as an integral part of an organization’s digital transformation strategy, especially with the remote working trend. In this scenario, Microsoft 365 cloud-based collaboration tools including productivity apps and security services and Microsoft Azure cloud computing service, when used together, unlocks opportunities to help organizations transform their business. In addition, Microsoft’s two cloud regions in the UAE

have delivered an increased performance for the company’s cloud services and this has further accelerated adoption and strengthened vendor-customer base,” said Philippe Jarre, CEO, Mindware. “After a detailed market analysis, we decided to add Rubrik to our portfolio, since the vendor has purpose-built data management and protection solutions of Microsoft 365 and Azure, and both companies share a strong technology collaboration. With this partnership, Mindware adds a modern, cloud friendly data protection solution provider to its portfolio. Our two companies together will present great opportunities for our regional business and technology partners to collaborate and add value in the next phase of cloud data management,” he added. Rubrik will sell its entire product portfo-

Philippe Jarre CEO, Mindware

lio – comprising cloud data management, cloud backup and recovery, security and compliance and NoSQL database protection – through Mindware’s extensive reseller network across MENA.

SECURELINK COLLABORATES WITH BRITISH UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI Professionals and freshers can get certified in key cybersecurity specializations are offered by BUiD in collaboration with Phase 2 Advantage and SecureLink:

SecureLink, a leading Risk Advisor in the META region and the British University in Dubai (BUiD) has entered into an agreement to empower cyber professionals accelerate their career paths with advanced cybersecurity qualifications. BUiD, in affiliation with well-known universities in the UK is known for providing world-class education with high standards of training and research facilities to students and aspiring professionals in the Middle East. All their courses contribute towards technological innovation and are accredited by the UAE Ministry of Education, making them the right choice for someone who is aiming for a successful career move. Under this alliance, cyber pros – be it experienced, or freshers can get handson experience and can excel in the below-mentioned domains that are prudently

• Certified Cyber Incident Response Manager (C-CIRM) • Certified Cyber Security Operations Manager (C-CSOM) • Certified Disaster Response and Recovery Manager (C-DRRM) • Certified Network Forensic Analysis Manager (C-NFAM) • Certified Network Infiltration & Assessment Specialist (C-NIAS)

mapped and developed to comply with the NIST NICE framework. Thus, enabling candidates enhance their cybersecurity skills across multiple spheres as well as provide enterprises with professionals with the right skillset. These certifications

Mahmoud Nimer, President, StarLink Group commented that, “Lack of skilled cybersecurity professional puts an organization at high risk. Most organizations opt for ‘on-the-job’ cybersecurity work experience which may not be sufficient to keep up with the evolving and complex nature of cyber threats. Our association with BUiD is aimed at building a new breed of highly skilled cybersecurity workforce to enable organizations become cyber-resilient.”

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» NEWS

MCAFEE AND INGRAM MICRO EXPAND PARTNERSHIP The vendor plans to expand its footprint on Ingram Micro’s network of e-commerce platforms throughout 2021

McAfee and Ingram Micro have announced an expanded worldwide relationship that builds on the transformation of the McAfee channel program. The new agreement will provide access to McAfee products and solutions across Ingram Micro’s global distribution network, including its regional Cloud Marketplaces and Centers of Excellence.

their offerings to address customer needs and drive intiatives to accelerate the opportunity by offering McAfee Device to Cloud Suites designed to help organizations accelerate cloud adoption. Additionally, Ingram Micro is expanding its services capabilities with McAfee to provide migration services to move from legacy security technology to McAfee MVISION products.

McAfee launched its SaaS portfolio on the U.S. Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace in late 2020, and plans to expand its footprint on Ingram Micro’s network of e-commerce platforms throughout 2021. Both companies recognize the opportunity and impact of cloud transformation happening within the channel landscape. Together, the two companies are working to help channel partners embrace these dynamics and enhance

“At McAfee, we are focused on empowering our partners to effectively address dynamic customer needs by providing industry leading security solutions, a strong eco-system, and programs that enhance profitability, ” said Kathleen Curry, senior vice president of global enterprise channels, OEM & strategic alliances, McAfee. “Ourexpanded relationship with Ingram Micro will help build on the transformation that McA-

BIG SPIKE IN GLOBAL MICROSERVICES ADOPTION Containers are twice as popular as other modern application technologies The push towards modern application environments is gaining strong momentum, according to new research by open-source pioneers NGINX. The sixth annual survey of NGINX’s extensive open-source user community found that the proportion of applications being built with microservices jumped from 40% to 60% in the past year. At the same time, more than 50% of the 600 respondents indicated that they were using microservices in some or all apps The survey also revealed that containers are twice as popular as other modern application technologies. Moreover, 34% of respondents said that they were using containers in their production environment, compared to serverless (15%) and service discovery (7%).

Dor Zakai EMEA Senior Director, Solutions Engineering, NGINX, F5

NGINX’s research resonates with Gartner’s recent prediction that 75% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production environments by 2022, up from less than 30% today. “We’re seeing a big shift from monolithic

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

Kathleen Curry

Senior Vice President, McAfee

fee has been driving and enable our organizations to reach a larger set of customers around the world in need of security protection.”

to microservices‑based apps. More than ever before, organisations are looking to build platforms with greater resilience and faster deployment capabilities. Without question, there’s a growing confidence worldwide that microservices‑based apps can help improve the user experience, which is an increasingly critical success factor for all organisations,” said Dor Zakai, EMEA Senior Director for Solutions Engineering, NGINX at F5. A further indication of this shift is that 14% of respondents plan to embrace service meshes in the next year, a 50% jump from the number currently doing so.As it stands, public cloud remains the most popular infrastructure option for modern app tools (55% of respondents), followed by Infrastructure-as-a-Service (23%), serverless computing (13%) and private Platform-as-a-Service (11%). Organisations are also steadily moving away from on-premises load balancers, with 24% now using software-based load balancers and 19% sticking with hardware. NGINX’s community survey responses indicate that the latter is set to drop to 15% in the next year.

» NEWS INSIGHT

HYBRID CLOUD IS STILL THE FRONTRUNNER AS THE IDEAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE

utanix has released an analysis of its third global Enterprise Cloud Index survey and research report, showing how companies in the UAE compare with the rest of the world when it comes to hybrid cloud adoption. A key finding: hybrid cloud is still the frontrunner as the ideal IT infrastructure model (83% of respondents in the UAE think so, which is close to the global figure of 86%), and respondents running hybrid environments are more likely to plan to focus on strategic efforts and driving positive business impact.

Key findings:

Respondents in the UAE currently run more private clouds (35%) than any other IT infrastructure model. Those from the UAE tied with Australia and Italy for having the largest penetration of private cloud of all ECI companies polled worldwide. Private cloud is a component of the emerging, highly flexible hybrid cloud model, which 83% of respondents in the UAE agreeing is the ideal IT operating model going forward. UAE appears to have done a reasonable job of paring down their use of legacy datacenter-only environments, reporting below-average penetration of 15% while the country is right in line with averages for hybrid cloud adoption (just 10% penetration).

Over the next five years, respondents in the UAE plan to reduce all IT models in use except for hybrid cloud, which they expect to grow significantly. Hybrid cloud/ multi-cloud will account for 45% of new deployments.

Security, privacy, and compliance strengths together represent the number one decision factor when considering new IT deployments. This was agreed by 26% of UAE respondents. Cost advantages ranked a distant second (13%); from there, respondents from the UAE were highly divided in their selections of the top IT deployment decision factor. More respondents from the UAE did report having to abide by executive-level mandates

as their top criterion (9%) than average (2%).

UAE IT pros are migrating to a hybrid cloud environment for better business outcomes, not just to save cost. UAE respondents cited better control of IT resource usage (65%), increased speed to deliver business needs (61%), and better support for remote working (61%).

Management tools that work across dissimilar cloud platforms are still maturing, and IT shops seek cross-platform cloud talent that’s currently challenging to find. More than a third of respondents from the UAE (35%) reported being short on the IT skills necessary to manage hybrid cloud environments, and over a fourth (29%) said they lacked skills in cloud-native and container technology, such as Kubernetes.

The top reason that UAE respondents moved applications to a new environment involved concerns over security in the public cloud (65%). The second most-often cited reason was to improve the speed of access to data (60%), a nod to the generally faster application response times of high-speed local-area networks compared to delay-sensitive wide-area networks used to reach the public cloud.

When asked where they plan to run applications in the new year 2021, respondents from the UAE were most optimistic about their intentions to host more applications in the private cloud (43%), surpassing the averages, while fewer than average said they’re likely to run more apps in a public cloud infrastructure. Slightly more than average said they intended to host more applications in on-premises datacenters (17%).

The majority of UAE respondents (83%) said that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused IT to be viewed more strategically within their organizations. The pandemic has in many cases forced IT shops to turn to the cloud for readily avail-

Aaron White

Sr. Sales Director, METI, Nutanix

able infrastructure that can accommodate larger numbers of work-from-home employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic generally drove new investments in cloud infrastructure and tools. 47% of UAE respondents reported making new investments in hybrid cloud and private cloud (41%), while 33% reported increased investments in public cloud infrastructure services because of the pandemic. Far fewer respondents from the UAE reported making no new infrastructure investments because of the pandemic (1%) than in other regions. Aaron White, Sr. Sales Director, METI at Nutanix said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced IT priorities. It moved many businesses’ IT focus from planned initiatives to remote infrastructure build outs to support home workers. However, in doing so, it has boosted cloud use, spurring the growth of underlying cloud infrastructure that’s essential to hybrid cloud plans and, more broadly, to corporate digital transformation initiatives.”

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» CIO OUTLOOK

ACCELERATING TO THE NEW NORMAL Challenged by the pandemic, organizations have come to deploy transformation technologies sooner than otherwise

020 was the year of the pandemic, bringing the world to its knees and yet humankind demonstrated resilience with Technology playing a helping hand. A new normal became the norm and unwittingly, the pandemic played the role of an accelerator, when it came to digital transformation. Organizations scrambled to set up Remote working, collaboration and learning infrastrcture, and the outcomes were more or less encouraging and successful. The world has adapted to the new normal in spite of significant challenges. Across several verticals, there have been success stories. George Akhras, CIO at AMSI, one of the large Education groups in the region says, “Most of the companies and Institutions in the UAE, including schools and universities, have ample manpower and technical capability to work remotely. What was needed was a push; unfortunately, a pandemic provided it and within a short period of time everyone embraced the new situation and learned how to adapt. Today, almost a year later, many businesses transformed and prepared a better virtual work-

place for their staff to be comfortable ad productive. “ He adds, “At AMSI, we adopted distance learning and reinforced our beliefs that the success of any organization depends on the skills and strengths of the core team and the proper alignment of the staff to our ultimate goals and objectives. We created an online school environment that mimics a typical school day as best as could be and supported our teachers and staff to become more comfortable in the virtual environment. Change was necessary across all verticals. In varying degrees, remote working was a necessity of the hour in all key verticals. Khalid Rashid Moh'd Jalal, Senior Group ICT Manager, GARMCO, Kingdom of Bahrain says, “While Remote working is not a new concept, with the advancements and transformations in technology and communications, it had become easier but unfortunately the adoption rate was never satisfactory. The year 2020 forced all the businesses and institutions to adopt “Work from Home” as the new normal. Although, the initial period was tough for most to

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

cope up with the new normal, everyone had to come out of their routine and comfort zone to learn something new and businesses were forced to implement the right solutions for their survival and existence.” The hybrid model of working is now seen as a trend here to stay. He adds, “The importance of remote working is recognized by all already as the new normal and the hybrid plan is being worked out without eliminating remote-working. The curve of remote-working has gone up but with the hybrid working mode the curve is changing to sinusoidal.” According to Ashith Piriyattiath, CEO, Guardian One Technologies, “Covid taught us a new norm, a total cultural transformation across all sectors. In the initial stages, it was a partial lockdown where only work from home and online learning was possible. We initially expected it to get over in 2 months but then we understood the new norm and it was necessary to get adapted to it. Then a cultural transformation happened and most of the organizations and industries, especially the education and

» CIO OUTLOOK the healthcare sectors adopted the blended model. Education became a mix of online and on campus while work culture blended into work from home and in office format. Even in the healthcare sector, medical consultations were carried out through phone conversations and online appointments. Now even this cultural change is accepted very well and it has become a common practice across industries to adopt the blended model. Technologies and solutions are also fine-tuned to enhance the same. I believe this will continue for a longer period and we must utilize the technology advancements for the same.”

Delivering in the hour of crisis

In the midst of the pandemic, IT teams were called upon to deliver on an unprecedented scale because their organizations needed to enable the required systems in quick time. The challenges weren’t insignificant. As George says, “Given the circumstances and the short period of time to react, IT decision makers had many challenges but mainly they were two-fold, technical and human. Firstly, IT had to ensure that their infrastructure and equipment have the capacity and scalability to accommodate for the new changes while preserving security and data integrity. Secondly, staff and stakeholders needed awareness, training and a versatile system to respond and resolve their requests. “ He lists three possible steps to keep stock of when managing the change. “Build a strong IT team and invest in their continuous development as IT staff experience and skills are an integral factor for the success of the transformation of an organization and in tackling and responding to the challenges. Acquire the full support and endorsement of the shareholders and senior management to allow for a faster and smoother change. Finally, adopt an active and accurate communication strategy with all stakeholders.” According to Ashith, the initial days of Covid 19 was a challenging time for the management/decision makers to shift the work culture from onsite to online. He adds, "Within the short span of time they had to make the arrangements to accommodate the remote working culture.

George Akhras CIO, AMSI

The pain areas were Accessibility, Infrastructure availability, Security, Cloud readiness and a centralized access of information. Over time we overcame all these challenges with the adoption of remote access, centralized cloud, audio-video communication solutions and AR/VR solutions.” Not all verticals and not all Businesses were ideally poised to make rapid adjustments with legacy infrastructure in some instances being a challenge to cloud preparedness. Further, the challenge when faced with expecting a large workforce transitioning to a new hybrid model was also significant. Khalid says, “There are various challenges in such a scenario. These could be the current state of readiness due to legacy applications and infrastructure, the sudden and unplanned investment needed to bridge the gap, the challenge in terms of time to expedite the needful rollout or the resistance to accept the new normal and new methods of working. In addition, the sudden need to provide training to a large number of end users or the unavailability of resources due to lockdowns and being out of country with no or limited connectivity or coping with the uncertain and unplanned changes in operational procedures and compliance, make it quite daunting. The list is actually more exhaustive.” To manage the challenges, he suggests

that there is a need to prioritize objectives and re-align IT objectives with the changing business objectives. He suggests that it is best to invest only on high priority demands and critical needs and re-negotiate contracts where possible for better and suitable terms. Further, improving vendor-customer relationships must be a priority as both parties need each other’s support more than before. Adopting “Digital Transformation FIRST” policy along with “Cloud First” policy and enabling more teamwork at all levels as well hold the key to negotiating the challenges successfully. Faced with the crisis of 2020, Some of the key verticals were able to leverage technologies better, taking it asan opportunity to transform towards more effective methods and processes. Ashith says, “Retail, Education and Healthcare sector have utilized more of online capabilities and especially in the retail sector where e-commerce uses Apps and platforms. As more and more apps and platforms were used, there was an increase in deployment of emerging digital transformation technologies especially AI/ML, cloud and IOT; Cloud mainly from the hosting and storing perspective, AI/ML for behavioral based solutions and IOT for geo tracking. And in the education sector, AR/VR based solutions have been introduced to bring school laboratory practicals to the comfort of home. This is

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» CIO OUTLOOK the cloud and some of our communication channels are on a public cloud.” He adds “Moving to the cloud has a direct impact in education where revenue growth is limited; it offers cost savings by reducing the cost of hardware, improves productivity by decreasing downtime of hardware failure, and drives higher productivity.” With lockdowns that went on for longer periods for a large part of the year and with uncertainty looming, organizations needed to look at solutions that worked and gave access to carry on from remote locations. Cloud was the viable alternative for most organizations to enable this.

Khalid Rashid Moh'd Jalal Senior Group ICT Manager, Garmco

going to be one of the biggest revolutions in the education sector.

The cloud clearly gaining

Cloud is seen as the gateway to digital transformation and 2020 was a great year for cloud adoption across all segments. With local datacentres of public cloud providers now available, there seemed to be an added momentum to cloud adoption rates. Further, the cloud made it simple to scale up your IT capabilities overnight and organizations needed that transformation like never before in the year of the pandemic. George says, “The shift towards the cloud is happening faster than ever before. Organizations are seeking digital transformation to better serve their clients and staff. Today, IT must leverage the private cloud because it is trusted, controlled and reliable; and the public cloud because it is simpler, available at lower cost and is flexible. At Amsi, we have taken big strides towards cloud adoption, both private and public. 86% of our applications are now on the cloud. We provide distance learning and virtual classrooms to more than 7000 students on our private cloud. Our student diplomas and transcripts are on the Blockchain in

Ashith says, “Cloud adoption rates have multiplied compared to the pre-covid times. As the key challenges of remote working were accessibility and centralized storage and retrieval of information with access rights, it became a big challenge within a short span of time, when offices were getting closed and operations had to be carried out from remote places. Initially everyone looked for a short-term solution but later it became apparent that we had to find a long-term solution. Cloud was the only effective option rather than depending on remote access solutions. There is great traction towards clouds from the SME sector as most of them were previously operating from on-premise infrastructure. Many of the organizations utilized their DR & BCP environments for initial lockdown period. But later they had to migrate even the on-premise primary infrastructure to cloud to enhance complete operational access to everyone in the organization.” It is worth mentioning that while cloud adoption saw a spurt because of Covid, it has been already seeing a steady climb in adoption and especially with regional datacentres of the public cloud providers setting up in recent years. Khalid says, “Although the journey of cloud started with Ecommerce, it progressed slowly for various reasons. With time the trend of ecommerce started accelerating and likewise cloud computing too. With the introduction of AZURE and AWS in this region, the Cloud adoption rates started increasing rapidly. Bahrain has come with a Cloud First Policy when AWS started its data centre in Bahrain. Govern-

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

ment entities, manufacturing and financial sectors were among the initial sectors to consider AWS, For example, GARMCO was the first manufacturing firm in Bahrain who went live with workloads on AWS.”

Rapid adoption

Emerging technologies like AI and IoT have seen wider adoption and will continue to see more applications, sooner than later. George says, “Not a long time ago, AI, Blockchain, IoT and other new technologies were ambitious aspirations. Today they are embedded in many aspects of our business operations. Learning Management Systems are now smart and draw the students’ learning paths based on AI routines. Diplomas and other documents are published on Blockchain. Smart lighting and security systems are available. These technologies have streamlined the operational processes and enhanced productivity and efficiency. They are now embedded in our systems and will continue to develop and spread. In the near future, in IT developed countries like the UAE, almost all first lines of communication will be handled by bots, all important government and private official documents will be on Blockchain and AI will be in every system.” He adds, “At AMSI, we understood the value of those technologies and their impact and held our first annual AI Symposium in 2017. We published our first diploma on the Blockchain in 2018. We shall continue to take steps to integrate new and emerging technologies into the mainstream education.” Emerging technologies are enhancing custmer experience and also providing more insights into consumer behaviour. According to Ashith, “To enhance user experience, new technologies like AI/ML, Clouds, IOT etc are embedded behind the platforms. AI/ML engines analyze the behavior and make predictions, thereby helping to enhance customer experience and satisfaction. Similarly, IOT also plays a vital role as each movement of individuals/ things creates valid information and data which was utilized mostly by industries like healthcare, retail and logistics sector for extracting insights. Further, a revolution in the education industry is coming with the utilization of AR/VR capabilities

» CIO OUTLOOK to bring school laboratory practicals to the comfort of home.”

basics right to adopt collaboration technologies and make them secure as well.

While there were perhaps some greater investments into IT over the past year, IT managed to reduce the cost of business operations significantly. Optimizing costs has to be one of the key mandates that IT will need to meet this year and further ahead.

“The pandemic compelled even those organizations, which were not following structured standard IT operations, to invest slightly more to implement the blended working culture of onsite and online. Security was also a major concern for the industries to address during the adoption of remote working solutions. Post the implementation of standard structures, the overall cost significantly reduced as the service providers were offering majority of the support requirements and the hassles of managing on premise infrastructure also became less. I believe most of the organization have made it mandatory to the IT department to control the costs with utmost flexibility and security, " says Khalid.

George says, “IT systems, when deployed correctly, improve efficiencies and save time; thus, reducing costs of operation. The size of the cost reduction depends on the needs and the proper scale of the implementation. If the proposed solutions do not match the needs or are in excess, the cost reduction will be minimal and the return on investment very long or nonexistent. Cost reduction was and will remain a key mandate of paramount importance to all IT decision makers specifically in verticals where revenue is limited, like education.” It is an undeniable fact that IT is now very much in the forefront as a key enabler of Businesses. And with cloud being seen as a preferred delivery model, the costs were also considerably lower from an investment and even operational point of view. Khalid says, “Just like the other essential elements, IT is one of the non-negotiable element of any business. Digitalization and automation along with 24x7 availability are key factors for business success with efficiency, productivity, and availability. IT investments are crucial to improve the business performance and reduce future recurring costs for better profitability. As per current trends, the shift is happening from CAPEX model to OPEX model with cloud adoption, but this change is still not satisfactory as most of license costs are CAPEX based which is becoming a bottleneck.” He adds, “With all the budget challenges, IT has been delivering to its maximum while reducing the recurring costs and even CAPEX. This will continue in the current year as well. IT has always come up with more innovative ideas to transform the business. The right bond between IT and business surely can bring the costs down further with similar or better outcomes.” Even organizations that were laggards previously when it came to adopting standard IT processes, were forced during the lockdowns to ensure they got some of the

The role of the IT decision maker has become more challenging from the perspective of choosing the solutions that suits the organization best. This is especially so when IT decision makers need to decide from a multitude of solutions available in the cloud. George says, “Finding and implementing the best solution was always a challenge especially with the fast rate of development and change that takes place. The increase in number of sensible options made it even harder. It is very difficult to find one solution to match the requirement and some mixing and matching is always required.” Further, the cloud service provider ecosystem is rapidly growing in the region and therefore Businesses will need to pick carefully from the wide range of options. According to Ashith, “Cloud has become the primary source of infrastructure solution. There are many service providers now, who have started their business in the region with different capabilities and features. It is really challenging for decision makers to evaluate different service providers in terms of costs, capabilities, security and conformance with industry wise data protection laws, compliance requirements as well as risk management. This can be overcome if you have a clear understanding about the business requirements in terms of expectations from the solution, costs and regional guidelines set by authorities.”

Ashith Piriyattiath

CEO, Guardian One Technologies

Khalid opines that it has always been the case even before the cloud, when it came to making a choice from solutions available and the fact that there are so many choices, makes it in fact easier to choose which fits the business objectives better. He says, “Well, this is not something new. There always have been multitude of solutions available even before the cloud, where IT decision makers had to make wise and long-term investment decisions. A lot more solutions are available on cloud and so it is easier to pick and choose as per the Business requirements. The core business solutions might still remain the same for a decade more but the decision of having the solutions on premise or on cloud or hybrid, might be taken depending on their nature and sensitivity of business.” Indeed, every Business will have separate decisions to make based on how they are poised in their industry at the present point of time in terms of core competencies and in comparison, to their competition. But for sure, being digitally enabled is now clearly a need of the hour, irrespective of the vertical and size of the business.

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» COVER FEATURE

ENABLING DIGITAL ENTERPRISES D-Link continues to constantly introduce new innovations in its networking solutions portfolio and with its broad portfolio enables Businesses, ranging from SMB to the enterprise on their digital transformation journeys

-Link has over the past couple of years, enhanced its portfolio with a good percentage of solutions now targeting mid-market and enterprise customers that are embarking on transforming their networks and seeking greater performance. The Nuclias cloud portfolio is its flagship offering and has been its focus over the past few years. One of the core offerings has been its switches. D-Link boasts an extensive portfolio for the enterprise sector that incudes switching, wireless and IP surveillance products. Sakkeer Hussain, Sales and Marketing Director at D-Link Middle East says, “As a networking leader, our focus has been to deliver highly effective network solutions for digital enterprises of today. Under switching, we offer numerous innovations in unmanaged switches, smart managed switches and fully managed switches, to name a few broad categories. D-Link switches consistently outperform the competition in the market and integrates into different verticals at all scales.”

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

One of its latest launches includes the DMS-106XT, unveiled at CES recently – an unmanaged switch that accelerates network efficiency and delivers uninterrupted online experiences. Featuring 2.5G Ethernet ports and one 10G Ethernet ports, users can connect to 2.5GE notebooks for HD streaming and gaming while the 10G port connects to storage for quick backup or restoring of data. Another flagship offering includes the growing DGS-2000 Series, which provide a diverse range of Gigabit port densities to accommodate various needs of enterprise access layer connectivity. With optio-ns such as PoE to conveniently power edge devices, SFP ports to extend network connectivity, advanced Layer 2 functionalities, and Layer 3 Lite manageability, the DGS-2000 Series is an ideal choice for any enterprise access layer deployment. “While these are only two of the most recent additions, we cater to a wide range of requirements for enterprises across verticals to help customers cut down inefficiencies and slash unnecessary costs while also optimizing networks, enhancing security and perfor-

» COVER FEATURE mance to create great user experiences,” adds Sakkeer. D-Link’s Nuclias Cloud solution extends to not just SMBs but also enterprises in terms of capabilities and performance. In fact, any organization with any level of IT resources is able to quickly and easily deploy, configure, manage, monitor, troubleshoot, and scale their networks remotely – via web browser or app. Sakkeer say, “Today increasingly more emphasis is given to remote and digital solutions by customers all across the world, in this regard Nuclias Cloud is often the preferred choice as compared to a traditional networking solution as it is cost-effective, efficient and features easy and zero touch deployment with hassle-free cloudbased management. We have already seen a huge uptake and tremendous adoption rate for Nuclias Cloud since its launch last year.” The launch of Nuclias Cloud came at the right time for the networking vendor, considering the immediate market requirements back then. D-Link looks poised to enhance the portfolio with new features and better market segmentations to provide further value-add propositions for its customers. For instance, last year with remote working environments becoming a critical infrastructural requirement, the cloud enabled Nuclias was a solution whose time had come. Sakkeer say, “The complete end-to-end innovative suite of Nuclias solutions is designed to assist and empower remote learning and working. It is unique because never before have IT administrators set up, automated, monitored and scaled wireless networks remotely so easily and seamlessly” Nuclias Cloud portfolio allows SMBs and large enterprises across retail, education and hospitality, as well as MSPs, to deploy professional-grade networks securely from anywhere and anytime, eliminating physical space constraints. Convenience, security, cost-effectiveness and ease of use make the solutions ideal for onboarding, studying, troubleshooting as well as monitoring and reporting network activity quickly and easily. In addition, the Nuclias Managed Wireless Networking Solutions offer the capability, hosting flexibility, and value that customers need to carry out their digital transformation efforts with minimal interruptions. The solutions offer centralized remote network management via an intuitive interface, and multi-tenant architecture that makes outsourcing simple for end-users. Steadily, the networking vendors has been strengthening its solutions focus for the mid-market and enterprise customers via its channel network. D-Link has been working closely with its channel partners to create a comprehensive ecosystem of innovative solutions to assist enterprise customers in their drive towards digitalization. “Over the past year, we have conducted in-depth virtual trainings as well as one-on-one online meetings with our partners to educate them on the enterprise opportunity and how our pioneering wireless and networking solutions can be the answer to customers’ digital challenges. We have several ongoing projects where we are empowering enterprise customers through our partners to take advantage of our latest offerings around Nuclias Cloud portfolio, mydlink, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet solutions among others,” says Sakkeer.

Sakkeer Hussain

Sales and Marketing Director, D-Link Middle East

The SMB segment in particular, is a stronghold for the vendor where it offers an end to end range of enterprise grade solutions at comfortable pricing points. Partners can choose from the broad array of portfolio to cater to SMB customers for all their networking requirements. This includes solutions for IP Surveillance, Wireless, Switching, Storage, Security, Cloud, VoIP, Print Servers, Structured Cabling, Digital Home, 3G/4G Routers, Power over Ethernet Kits, Powerline, KVM, Structured Cabling and Digital SMB offerings. “As a networking solutions leader for over 20 years in the region, we are well positioned to cater to all SMB requirements in an ever-evolving market. As SMB businesses expand, they need to have enterprise quality networking and wireless solutions at cost-effective prices. Understanding these requirements well, over the years, we have unveiled a number of products and solutions targeted at this segment. Partners can rely on us to be their one-stop-shop when it comes to the SMB segment, ” says Sakkeer. D-Link continues to invest in numerous trainings, certifications and workshops for its channel partners to educate them on the fundamentals of SMB businesses and how they should approach customers from these segments. Additionally, the vendor offers specific and dedicated programs, directed at the SMB sector to motivate partners to earn more. Coupled with relevant services, D-Link is FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» COVER FEATURE providing its partners opportunities to earn higher margin with offerings in the SMB space. The SMB segment had a tough battle right through the year because of Covid-19, and there were many companies who chose to reinvent and recalibrate their go to market with digital transformation. Those companies who have kept pace with what transformation was need of the hour, have had it easier in meeting Business challenges. And those businesses kept Technology vendors like D-Link and their partners interested, with the current year likely to be a lot better. Sakkeer says, “While 2020 was certainly a tough year for all businesses, it was interesting to note the uptake of technological solutions as that became the key differentiator between a company that was able to successfully sail through and one that didn’t. In this regard, SMBs while cautious were also investing in immediate requirements that would enable them to seamlessly transition their operations to an online model, which was the need of the hour then.” He elaborates further, “At D-Link we are observing a renewed optimism from the market as we progress ahead into this year. We expect the market to stabilize further as more vaccines are rolled out and we gradually enter into a post-pandemic era. In terms of the technology sector, we will see increased investments in remote, cloud and digital technologies that enable business continuity. As per 2021 Global Investment Outlook Report published by First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE economy is expected to grow by about 2.5 percent this year after shrinking by 6 percent in 2020 as a result of pressures relating to the global coronavirus pandemic and low oil prices.” Last year, D-Link also introduced several solutions to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This included the DCS-9500T Group Temperature Screening Camera Kit that can simultaneously scan up to 30 people with a rapid response time within 30 ms, eliminating queues in busy public areas such as office buildings, factories, schools, shopping centers, etc. The DCS9500T features dual-lens technology for high-quality footage, while 17 viewing modes and intelligent facial recognition allow for accurate, rapid identification. The DCS-9500T can precisely distinguish peo-

ple and raise an alarm when someone has an elevated temperature. Body temperature can be measured to an accuracy of ±0.3°C with a sensitivity of 40mK. It also introduced the DCS-F7200FT Face Recognition Access Control Terminal with Digital temperature Measurement Module. The DCS-F7200FT Digital temperature measurement face recognition access control terminal is a kind of access control device with precise recognition rate, large storage Capacity and fast recognition, which integrates face recognition technology and non-contact temperature detection technology. The digital temperature measurement module supports rapid body temperature detection. Thus, the product can achieve face recognition and temperature detection at the same time, and support warning people with abnormal body temperature. It can be widely applied in the crowded places, such as smart communities, schools, office buildings, hospitals and other important areas D-Link also has solutions for the fast-growing surveillance segment with IP cameras, camera accessories, NVRs and switches. The Middle East is in fact one of the fastest growing regions for electronic security systems market, and the bulk of the market demand is driven by video surveillance segment. Sakkeer says, “The factors driving the growth of the regional video surveillance market includes the flourishing constructions market, increased foreign investments, along with mounting security concerns, security spending and large-scale international events. At D-Link we have seen that the regional video surveillance market is displaying a rising demand for IP/ Network video surveillance systems, while demand for analog video surveillance systems are declining. Video analytics are also increasingly playing a critical role in the surveillance area and we will see more advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning being employed in this space.” In a continuing quest to broaden its offerings and segments addressed, D-Link towards end of last year, also struck a partnership with Ameyo to offer cloud-based omni-channel contact center solutions for the Middle East market. Through this strategic partnership, D-Link is Ameyo’s sole

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

cloud partner in the UAE and Oman. Sakkeer says, “Our aim and focus have been to provide our partners the hardware reliability and software services under one umbrella with Ameyo’s product suite. Ameyo’s portfolio includes Omnichannel Contact Center Solutions and Helpdesk & Ticketing Software. Enterprises can now replace their existing legacy contact center infrastructure as part of their digital transformation journey and save huge costs with combined offerings from Ameyo and D-Link.” In the next few months, D-Link has a lineup of several new solutions to launch from its various Business groups including Wifi6 Mesh Routers, Wifi-6 Extenders, Nuclias Business Cloud access points, mydlink cloud cameras, 5G Routers and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet solutions. With over two decades of commitment to the Middle East market, D-Link continues to be steady in its efforts to reach out and continue addressing market requirements. Alongside, it has also nurtured a successful ecosystem of partners who have been instrumental in helping script its success.

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» CYBERSECURITY

SECURING ORGANIZATIONS Forcepoint is a global cybersecurity leader for user and data protection. Solutions. Jawad Toukna, who has been heading sales and operations as the Director of Regional Sales for the MENA region at Forcepoint for over 10 years, elaborates on Forcepoint’s behavior-based solutions that adapt to risk in real-time and are delivered through a converged security platform

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

Please discuss how a SASE approach towards cybersecurity is quite critical and unique to ensure better security in the multicloud era? The Coronavirus pandemics forced a mass shift toward supporting large groups of remote workers, creating a scenario where organisations need to focus on protecting data and users in a hybrid IT ecosystem. Since users can now access data from anywhere and from any device, it has given rise to a new category, an age our Chief Product Officer – Nico Popp calls as ‘the unbound enterprise’. Securing the unbound enterprise is about protecting users and data in a distributed and diverse environment, one that bridges traditional on-premises infrastructures, including the home office, to multicloud and multi-SaaS ones. At Forcepoint, we understand the transformation our customers

» CYBERSECURITY during the Sunburst attack—that’s an approach that falls short. So why not take an inside-out approach instead? Attempts to rein in users and data tend to be counterproductive because they usually cost organizations dearly, both in terms of production and overall efficiency. A user and data-centric security approach no longer starts with where they reside. No longer tethered to a fixed network, unbound employees become liberated from hardware infrastructure limitations of the past. When it comes to network security, nowadays it’s all about protecting the distributed network. We need to look at enterprise-class SD-WAN, advanced intrusion prevention, and seamless integration with the cloud-based SASE security we discuss above.

Jawad Toukna Regional Sales Director, MENA, Forcepoint

currently face. And, we are committed to helping our customers meet their mass telework security needs. What enterprises’ require is a tight integration of capabilities that cross traditional product boundaries to solve today’s pressing security problems, such as delivered through a Gartner’s Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture approach. Do your solutions cover both on-premise as well as cloud-based applications? Yes, gone are the days when work was confined within the four walls of any organisation. Even before the pandemic, enterprises moved towards employing a hybrid IT architecture that split IT functions between on-premise and cloud platforms. Forcepoint’s on-premise appliances provide high-capacity throughput for large offices while the cloud secures smaller satellite offices, mobile users and lately remote workers. Your three pivots of cloud security seem to be around data protection, insider threat and network security – please elaborate regarding this? Enterprises should focus more on detecting and preventing potential breaches rather than cleaning up after a breach has already occurred. Forcepoint’s range of cybersecurity solutions helps in securing organisations from cyber threats by identifying and preventing breaches before they occur. Traditional security tends to take an outside-in approach, starting with the perimeter and building layers of security toward the data, all to keep the bad guys out. As many companies started to realize

No matter how robust security strategies are, data breaches will continue to happen. As users continue to work remotely, they’ll continue to introduce new security risks. The cybersecurity path forward requires a deeper analysis of behaviors. The first step is establishing a behavior baseline at the individual level. What constitutes normal behavior? What behavior is unusual? Bad actors impersonate our employees to access and steal our data. Taking a closer look at how users interact with data no matter where it resides will help move the unbound enterprise left of breach. The deep understanding of behavior and risk creates a shift in security strategy—one where policies no longer have to be binary but instead, automatically personalized to the user. How is SASE redefining security as we know it, and how does your approach stand out? Gartner’s SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) architecture can help organisations safely connect their users to the data, applications, and resources they need to be productive in a rapidly changing world. SASE brings the network and its security back to where applications and data really are: the cloud. It is geared towards platform-based solutions that unify web, network, and app security. Gartner has recognised Forcepoint as a representative vendor within the emerging SASE market. Forcpoint’s network and data protection solutions implement the SASE model, weaving together advanced security capabilities such as firewalling, intrusion prevention, web content inspection, malware scanning, URL filtering, application access, and more into a single, unified cloud service. This converged approach eliminates gaps and redundancies to stop attackers from breaking into an enterprise from the internet, web content, or cloud apps—consistently, no matter where people work. Discuss some key features of your CASB solution? In past years, control over data was tight, but with the introduction of the cloud and mobile workers, that’s no longer the case. You need visibility into cloud usage, including who uses which apps, their departments, locations, and devices used. Our CASB solution provides the visibility and control needed to keep data safe as it moves into the cloud, and it does this in three ways: 1. Discovery: providing a global view of all cloud apps being accessed by end users. It enables enterprises to see important metrics like traffic volume, hours of use, number of accounts and number of apps added over a given period of time. 2. Risk Assessment: Our built-in use and entity behaviour analytics functionality identifies anomalies or high-risk activities based on a FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» CYBERSECURITY continuously updated behaviour risk score. 3. Protection and Control: Enterprises will be able to automatically enforce policies and protect against credential miss use and malicious insider acts. This will enable identification of user activities on unmanaged devices accessing unsanctioned cloud applications, which is a hot bed for risk. How is your Continuous Zero Trust security different from a traditional approach to zero trust security? Zero Trust is one of the hottest topics in cybersecurity. Forrester predicts that Zero Trust architectures will grow 200% in 2021. Forcepoint combines the best of both worlds by putting SASE and Zero Trust together to create the Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) - a cloud-based architecture for more efficiently and more securely protecting people and data no matter where they are. Delivered as a cloud-based service such as Forcepoint’s Private Access, ZTNA systems tailor each user’s access to just the specific applications they need. Everything else on the internal network remains hidden. This approach makes it possible for networking teams to provide remote access to line-of-business applications while security teams retain the visibility and control, they need to keep the enterprise safe.

Francisco Partners completes acquisition of Forcepoint Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses, has closed on the previously announced acquisition of Forcepoint from Raytheon Technologies. Forcepoint is a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions that protects the critical data and networks of thousands of customers throughout the world. Coinciding with the transaction close, the company’s board of directors has appointed Manny Rivelo as

Discuss key details of the insider threat management program? Unfortunately, malicious outsiders aren’t the only ones organizations should be on the lookout for. The truth remains that people are the largest threat in any business. According to Varonis, a third of all data breaches in 2018 involved internal actors, and In 2019, on average, every employee had access to 17 million files and 1.21 million folders.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective immediately.

Traditional insider threat solutions were designed for the traditional infrastructure-centric security. A combination of SASE and Zero Trust provides the security team with the ability to respond to insider risks in real time, achieved by feeding further user activity signals from endpoint monitoring and access control systems, along with the signals from the SASE environment, into the insider threat analytics.

quires tight integration of capabilities that cross tradi-

Discuss your focus in the Middle East region and the company’s growth/ performance regionally last year? The Middle East remains an important market for Forcepoint. The region is one of the highest growing regions globally due to its focus on digitalization, even prior to the pandemic. Forcepoint has registered double digits growth in the market and will continue to invest in the region. We are serving customer demand as a trusted adviser for leading cybersecurity solutions in the region. The pandemic meant that customers needed to pivot to remote working and we were privileged to be able to support them with their network security (SD-WAN, VPN, NGFW) as well as data security needs (CASB, DLP) during this difficult time. Looking ahead, we see more positive outlook for customers and prospects as digital transformation continues apace. We expect to see growth in many industries, particularly but not limited to healthcare ,Government, financial services, infrastructure, telecoms, business services.

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

As CEO, Rivelo will focus the company’s strategy on accelerating enterprise and government agency adoption of a modern approach to security that embraces the emerging Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture. Forcepoint’s SASE approach recognizes solving today’s most pressing security problems retional product boundaries. It is cloud-native, end-user aware and powered by a converged security platform, and available today through Forcepoint Cloud Security Gateway and Private Access. “Cybersecurity has never been more important for businesses and governments around the world. As we continue to see broad-scale global attacks, the cybersecurity industry needs to evolve to deliver security capabilities to match those of today’s sophisticated threat actors. Likewise, every organization today needs to evolve its security posture to holistically integrate cybersecurity across the entirety of its business operations and culture. It can no longer be viewed as ‘just an IT issue’,” said Rivelo. “I look forward to solidifying Forcepoint’s leadership position as the global cybersecurity partner of choice for enterprises and government agencies.”

» INTERVIEW

TOTAL SECURITY Discuss CyberKnight 's approach and strategy towards cybersecurity distribution- elaborate about the zero trust framework and what you refer to as the Art of cybersecurity distribution? CyberKnight’s The Art of Cybersecurity Distribution is a go-tomarket strategy that entails adding the maximum value to partners, customers and vendors simultaneously. To the vendor, CyberKnight becomes an extension of the vendor on-the-ground in each covered country in the region, from sales through support. To the customer, CyberKnight is a Trusted Advisor, helping regional enterprise and government customers simplify incident response while achieving compliance. To the partner, CyberKnight focuses on empowerment to help them differentiate themselves and drive increased profitability.

Avinash Advani Founder & CEO, CyberKnight

CyberKnight achieved more than $10 Million in revenue bookings in its 1st year of operations despite the impact of Covid-19 and is on track for exponential growth in 2021. Avinash Advani, Founder & CEO at CyberKnight discusses the company’s approach to cybersecurity distribution

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

CyberKnight has built its portfolio offering around Zero Trust Security to assist customers with digital transformation including enabling a remote workforce, cloud adoption and protecting data accessed by users, devices and applications no matter where they are located. The framework is critical for organizations to consider implementing as there are inherent flaws in current security strategies and architectures since networks have evolved to hybrid environments with on-premise, cloud and mobile spaces. Data is constantly flowing outside the corporate perimeter due to the rapid adoption of cloud and the explosion of remote working, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the traditional defense perimeter is vanishing, implicit trust can no longer be assumed in the LAN because attackers are leveraging historically flat environments to compromise credentials giving them access to sensitive data. These issues also play a major role in attacker dwell time as there is a lack of lateral movement detection. How challenging has it been building a value distribution business from scratch in the past 1 year, especially when the market has been impacted by Covid-19? What have been the key highlights of the success so far? It was definitely challenging to build a new distribution business as we had entered 2020 with ambitious targets and goals for the year, but then in March we entered the lockdown and everything suddenly took a U-turn. Even after emerging from the lockdown, it took a good quarter for the market to return to some semblance

» INTERVIEW of normalcy. Therefore Q2 and Q3 had a disastrous impact on our ability to meet our initial 2020 plan. But thankfully, Q4 was rock solid and we managed to persevere through 2020. We are grateful and proud to have been able to achieve over $10 Million in our first year! Other than surviving the year, which is an achievement in itself, we focused extensively on two main campaigns: Zero Trust for the Remote Workforce and Unified Threat Intelligence, both of which were well received and garnered significant partner and customer interest. In addition, the other key achievements of 2020 included building the portfolio with 20+ market-leading cybersecurity vendors, onboarding more than 50 Strategic Partners across the region, building more than $60 Million in pipeline with over 900 opportunities, and deploying our on-the-ground teams across the region. While there is a lot of work getting done through remote collaboration, there is a need for physical presence as well for Businesses to reach out to different markets. How is CyberKnight looking to achieve that balance across the region and markets of focus? CyberKnight has the philosophy of centralized strategy, but decentralized execution. We absolutely understand that our partners and customers in each country require us to have local presence to support them. So, although headquartered in Dubai, we have deployed local sales and technical teams in all key Middle East markets. This expansion will continue step-by-step until we have effectively covered the entire region, following which our ambition is to extend the strategy into neighboring regions. SASE is the new approach to cybersecurity in the cloud - discuss how Cyberknight has been building that approach in terms of vendors aligned with and solutions in your portfolio? SASE is definitely on our radar, but as cloud adoption has historically been slower in the Middle East as compared to other parts of the world, we decided to focus on Zero Trust Security first to build our initial offering, and have mapped our portfolio to each of the micro-perimeters in the ZTX Framework. Now, as organizations are accelerating on their cloud journey, our immediate goal is to assist them with a Zero Trust approach to the cloud, which removes trust assumptions when users, devices and applications connect. The future evolution of our offering will definitely encompass SASE, at which point we will be able to provide complete session protection, regardless of whether a user is on or off the corporate network. How do you see organizational investments in cybersecurity going up in the region? What are the kinds of solutions that are seeing larger spends? Other than collaboration, cybersecurity was one of the only other IT segments that grew in Q2 and Q3 last year. This is because of the rapid need that arose to move employees to a remote working environment, but then also to support this transition from the SOC. Furthermore, I do believe that cybersecurity investment will con-

tinue to increase in the Middle East as regional organizations are constantly playing catchup to cyber attackers. In 2021, I expect to see an increase in spend across various cybersecurity domains including cloud security, zero trust network access, phishing defense, password-less authentication, automated and continuous compliance, code security, and next-generation breach detection that leverages AI, deep learning and UEBA. As a distributor, what are the value add support services you provide your partners? We assist our partners with value-added services that span sales through support. So this includes assisting them with marketing, lead generation, sales presentations, as well as, Pre-Sales activities like technical presentations, demos, RFP responses and POCs. Then, we also assist partners with post-sales services like implementation and support, but only when they require such services, so as to not complete with their professional services offerings. We also assist partners with solution-selling around key advisory topics such as threat intelligence, threat hunting, security operations, ransomware protection, endpoint security etc. Do you help solution provider partners opt for the right solutions from your portfolio since there may be overlaps in offerings from vendors in your portfolio? What would be the typical selection criteria in such instances? Yes, by understanding the profile of each of our strategic partners, we align portfolio vendors to them based on their existing areas of focus, their target customer base, their cybersecurity vision, the type of partner they are: VAR, SI, MSSP etc., and of course, based on what is complementary to their current vendors. Also there is minimal competitive overlap in our portfolio as we consciously try to avoid this commonly made mistake, so that we can give maximum focus to each of our vendors. Of course there may be vendors that target the same customer budget, but technologically there is minimal duplication, unless vendors go through mergers and acquisitions themselves that are outside our control. Have you held any virtual partner events in 2020? Are there plans to hold such engagements in 2021? Yes, several, to map to our Zero Trust for the Remote Workforce and Unified Threat Intelligence campaigns, as well as, separate events for our respective portfolio vendors. We will absolutely continue to host such engagements in 2021 for each of our vendors aligning with their individual channel strategies and business objectives. Watch this space, as we will also be launching new innovative campaigns in 2021! Would you be participating at this year's GISEC? Yes, in a big way, with many of our strategic vendors participating with us as we truly believe in the potential of the show. The only caveat is that travel restrictions in the Middle East must be reduced enabling customers and partners to travel to Dubai for the event, otherwise we may have to reconsider our participation. FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

THREE WAYS LOW-CODE NO-CODE CAN INCREASE ROI Dan Matthews, Chief Technology Officer at IFS discusses the key to enabling successful lowcode no-code environments and how the vendor is working on a more intuitive no-code way Low-code or no-code is something enterprise software companies have been moving towards for obvious reasons—the chief one being that it empowers customers to quickly do more with their software. TechTarget defines a low-code, no-code development platforms as “a visual software development environment that allows citizen developers to drag and drop application components, connect them together and create a mobile or web app.” This is the effect of democratizing software development so a business analyst or line manager can structure new process flows and functionality without the external expense or time drag of involving a team of developers or programmers. It is no wonder that IDC Analysts Joe Pucciarelli and Serge Findling predict that by 2025, 60 percent of CIOs will implement governance for low/no-code tools to increase IT and business productivity. Gartner predicts that over 65 percent of all application development will take place in low-code, no-code environments by 2024.

Part of the plan

IFS has prioritized openness and configurability throughout our history, but with our coming release and to a certain extent in IFS Applications 10, we see an imme-

diate future where a company can drive more value more quickly with enterprise software than ever before. I think we will see three ways for an executive team to achieve this type of return. Behind each of these three routes to higher return on investment (ROI), we see that successful low-code no-code environments do not just happen. The ability to provide simple and graphical ways to draw relationships between systems and transactions and events is dependent on underlying software that is good at working and playing well with other systems. Some vendors will talk about how they have open application programming interfaces (APIs), but these are often few and designed for specific, pre-determined integration scenarios. The application in the meantime internally communicates (for example between the user interface and the business logic) in a proprietary fashion that cannot be leveraged by external systems. To maximize the agility delivered by lowcode, no-code tools, the entire application should be built on open APIs, and those APIs should be used internally by the application as well. As for the exact technology to use--that varies over time. A decade

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ago, it would have been web services technology, but today the most appropriate is use of RESTful APIs—based on the REpresentational State Transfer architecture. Enterprise applications can go a step further by relying on the ISO/ICE-approved OASIS OData (Open Data Protocol), making things even more interoperable. When the application is built on the same set of RESTful APIs it exposes to other systems, it is a lot easier to access the precise spot in a value flow with which you need to integrate. 1. Faster external integrations A robust architecture built on RESTful OData APIs, documented according to the Open API Initiative specifications, gives customers the ability to use a low-code solution to extend enterprise software on the outside to create task specific apps or connect to other systems. This may be used for something as simple as automating steps to take around a new hire. Creating a new employee number may, for instance, fill in a desk number for new employee in an office floor plan, initiate payroll activities in a human resources creating an account in Outlook and ordering flowers from the local florist and having them delivered to the desk on an employee’s first day. It may also populate in a serialized part structure from a machinery manufacturing process into the software that will be used to manage service of that piece of equipment under an annual maintenance contract. Any data, action or event in an enterprise software system should be accessible in a clear and thorough API library.

» INSIGHT

With enough of these RESTful APIs, any number of low-code, no-code tools can be used to create targeted apps that interact with IFS software and other systems running in a business. Commercial software offerings including Microsoft Power Apps and offerings from Snaplogic, Mendix and Outsystems can be used to build an experience and drive processes in enterprise software using APIs. We have already ensured that in IFS software, anything you can do internally to the software you can also access and automate using external tools. This will become more and more important as our customers who may be using these external low-code, no-code platforms want to use them to orchestrate processes across multiple applications, including those from IFS. 2. Low-code, no-code approaches to configuring and automating internal to the software Low-code, no-code tools are also more commonly used to tailor how IFS software works internal to itself, giving customers more control over their software. Already we offer the ability to extend the data model, tailor the user interface and user navigation flow through a process using no-code tooling IFS Page designer, which also enables customers to create net new fields and screens. While there have long been ways to do this in IFS Applications, what we are working on now is a more intuitive nocode way that will not only automate process steps or user actions but add machine learning capabilities for intelligent process automation (IPA). Our coming release democratizes creation of intelligent systems by putting it within reach of business analysts, line managers and through a simple what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) interface. Combined with the library of RESTful APIs, this visual editor will present endless possibilities for IPA that will automate processes. As an example, imagine that for products of a certain category you want to send an installation technician, with the right skills, arriving at exactly the right time, to your customer site to help them get set up with using your product.

Dan Matthews

Chief Technology Officer, IFS

Because the IPA capability is embedded in our software it can capture any additional input needed from users as part of the existing business transactions, rather than relying on users to find and perform tasks in other systems. As we add in the intelligent parts, we’ll see AI and Machine Learning models being used to make choices inside the automation about what to do next (branching decisions), or predicting values to be filled in. Further down the line, we will see automated continuous improvement of processes as machine learning recommends or even proactively makes process changes to improve outcomes. 3. Built from the ground up with lowcode, no-code IFS has already executed on a plan is to make low-code, no-code easy by re-architecting our products on RESTful APIs so external and internal systems can automate process, access any data, and create extensions to our software on the outside. Regardless of whether a customer is using our internal IPA tools or external low-code, no-code process orchestration software, IFS software offers transparent access to precisely the right part of the system to support a given integration or process automation. IFS is also using a low-code, no-code approach to developing new functionality, so

that we can build new solution and industry specific functionality faster, cheaper and with higher quality. To this end we have adopted a low-code Domain-Specific Language (DSL) to produce our standard solution. Not only does this low-code approach help us create value faster, it also helps to insulate us from technology changes in the future. Moving away from a technology used in our middle-tier, for instance, goes faster and easier because the DSL describes the intent of what something in the application (for example an API) should do, rather than how it is technically done. Or the fact that we are able to use the same DSL definition of pages in our user interface to provide across web browsers as well as in the form of native apps on Android, iOS and Windows. Combined, this means we can make changes with less disruption, evolve the software faster and get it into customer hands so they can begin to realize value. And we will naturally think more about how our enterprise software looks not only through the user interface, but to those who are accessing it through RESTful APIs from other systems and platforms. IFS software is already far down a path to low-code and no-code—one that we’re set to continue on for years to come as well.

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

Protecting Human Rights in the Era of Cyber Information Warfare Edwin Weijdema, Global Technologist, Product Strategy at Veeam shares why data protection and cybersecurity technologies have a role to protect the integrity of our human rights

isinformation is undermining the limitless potential of technology to be a positive force for industries, businesses and communities.

In the current global landscape, barely a conversation goes by without mention of “fake news” and its ability to mislead critical discourse regarding events such as elections and current affairs around the world. Combined with the fact that the definition of privacy is constantly being redefined in the age of ‘surveillance capitalism’, this means it’s a not-so-metaphorical minefield out there when it comes to safeguarding our data. In light of this, the onus is increasingly on data protection and cybersecurity technologies to protect the integrity of our human rights in the face of cyber information warfare. But businesses too must ensure they remain on the right side of using data ethically, compliantly and securely. Data Protection Day is an opportunity to explore some of the

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technologies leading the way in the fight against cyber (dis)information and how businesses can take up arms to protect our rights as employees, consumers, and citizens.

Data protection as a human right

Unbeknown to some, data protection is a human right. In Europe, it’s for this reason that we celebrate Data Protection Day, which this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Automatic Processing of Personal Data. Or in short – Convention 108: the treaty that spawned the first European Union-wide data protection laws, which is today covered within the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Despite the significant financial and reputational damage for failing to protect this basic human right, it’s data protection, or rather a lack of, which continues to grab headlines. Fortunately, data protection and cybersecurity technologies are striving to change this.

» INSIGHT Technology: a vital weapon in the fight against cyber information warfare

A lot has been said about technology’s role as an enabler for spreading disinformation and inciting cyber information warfare. But more vitally, it’s our biggest weapon in the fight against cybercriminals. This is particularly true with its role as a guardian against a choice weapon of cybercriminals. Ransomware is a maliciously created malware that encrypts files and storage. It is one of the most intractable and common threats facing organisations across all industries and geographies. Predominantly, attackers use ransomware to extort money. But many attacks also seek out production and backup files, as well as documents. By encrypting those too, the attack leaves organisations with no choice but to meet the demands of cybercriminals. By the end of 2021, the global cost of ransomware damage is predicted to reach $20 billion (USD), according to the 2019 Veeam Ransomware Study. But more damaging still is the countless violations of human rights as ransomware attackers increasingly threaten to leak stolen data. To combat this – and the rising challenges of cybercriminals working together – it’s important for technology to form its own armies and alliances, such as the ransomware protection alliance Veeam has formed with a number of partners including: Cisco, AWS, Lenovo, HP and Cloudian. But of course, cybercriminals are always seeking new and innovative ways to steal data and since the start of COVID-19, businesses haven’t been the only ones accelerating their digital transformation – with cyberattacks on cloud systems spiking 250% from 2019 to 2020. In response, it’s more important than ever to work with technology partners that not only prioritise the data management needs of today, but are also looking to the cloud and security solutions of tomorrow – all the while remaining one step ahead of cybercriminals.

Using data ethically, compliantly and securely

In this digital age, businesses have more responsibility than ever to use data ethically, compliantly and securely. Doing so is not a nice-tohave or something that sits atop a business agenda. It’s a human right! But still, too many businesses are inadvertently aiding the efforts of cybercriminals with their lackadaisical approach to data security. In a recent article, Mohamed al-Kuwaiti, head of UAE Government Cyber Security was quoted saying that ‘the Middle East region is facing a “cyber pandemic” with Covid-19 related attacks skyrocketing in 2020’. Trend Micro recorded over 50m cyber-attacks in the GCC region during the first half of 2020. Fines and reputational damage are of course deterrents. However, we’re still seeing too many data breaches and businesses must do more to curb the plight of data protection. To this end, technology is once again a key enabler.

Edwin Weijdema

Global Technologist, Product Strategy, Veeam

"Ransomware is a maliciously created malware that encrypts files and storage. It is one of the most intractable and common threats facing organisations across all industries and geographies."

Regardless of your business size, find a solution that ensures data security, compliance and customer privacy requirements are met. Don’t just take a vendor’s word that their solutions are secure – read customer testimonials, do your research and look to respected rewards bodies. In the business year ahead, maintaining customer trust will be a core priority – there’s enough going on in the world for them to also be worrying about the welfare of their data, after all. So, putting your trust in the right technology can help uphold our human rights and take giant strides in the war against cybercriminals. FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

MANAGING SECURITY RISK THAT IMPACT DIGITAL BUSINESS Courtney Radke - Retail CISO at Fortinet writes that the onus is on the business to implement strategies that will enable secure transaction transactions from behind the scenes

ince the rise of the Internet, businesses have been forced to continually shift their strategies to effectively compete in the digital marketplace. From on-demand to subscription-based offerings, all digital business models center on the use of various technologies to improve operational efficiency and the customer experience, thereby enhancing their overall value. But while digital-first strategies are proving to be beneficial across all business sectors, it is ecommerce that stands out as one of the most widely used models available. This was especially true in 2020, as many shifted to online shopping as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, it is predicted that global B2C ecommerce sales will reach $4.5 trillion by 2021.

Security Risks Impacting Digital Business

Digital business models such as ecommerce have become a critical component of the global economy, but they do not come without their own set of risks. As organizations rush to digitize, cybersecurity is of-

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ten left out of the equation for the sake of saving time and initial costs. However, when security is not weaved into the framework of a digital strategy, organizations may end up losing the resources that they had initially fought to save. This fact alone should be of concern for any digital business, especially those in the ecommerce space. A rise in online shopping has led to increased web traffic, something cybercriminals have been all too quick to exploit. And in 2020, this issue only grew more significant, further impacting the security of ecommerce sites. Between September and October alone, the FortiGuard Labs team saw a 140% increase in attempted attacks targeting this space. With the knowledge that more people are shopping online now than ever before, cyber criminals have taken advantage of the increase in virtual queues and slow web processing times. With digital transformation comes the expansion of the threat landscape, presenting various opportunities for cybercriminals to target unsuspecting individuals. One strategy that threat actors have adopted is placing ads or links on trusted websites to lead shoppers away from their secure browsing experience, usually with the promise of a great deal. Upon arriving at the fraudulent site, shoppers will be directed to enter access credentials – including a username and password – that a cybercriminal can then use on the real website to steal personal information. Through the deployment of phishing, malware, and man-in-the-middle attacks, and by leveraging Rogue Access Points (APs), cyber

» INSIGHT criminals can further their attempts to exploit wireless or proxy servers. Often, the goal here is to gain access to payment card information that can be used to fund other efforts. And while cyberthreats such as these are unfortunately common across digital businesses in general, the lack of security measures across many ecommerce sites is particularly concerning considering the large portion of the public that shops online without understanding the potential risks.

Taking Steps to Secure Digital Experiences

The ecommerce space is extremely profitable, which is exactly why cybercriminals target these types of businesses. They rely on the fact that most individuals do not ask themselves, “How do I know if this online shopping site is safe?” For this reason, it is up to the business to implement strategies that will enable secure transactions from behind the scenes, stopping threat actors in their tracks before they can even reach customers. Below are just a few ways in which this can be accomplished: • Ensure Compliance: Meeting compliance standards is one of the most basic, yet critically important, ways that ecommerce sites can protect their customers. By taking certain steps, businesses can ensure they have laid a partial framework for combatting cyberthreats – this often means not storing more data than is necessary. Major cybersecurity-related regulations that ecommerce sites should comply with include: Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO). • Confirm Infrastructure is Up to Date: Unsurprisingly, outdated security is a top reason for repeated attacks. This often comes with basic misconfigurations on storage buckets and public cloud computing access systems, resulting in vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited. And while this is undoubtedly an issue across all types of digital businesses, having up-to-date infrastructure within ecommerce is especially critical due to the complexity of these sites. In some scenarios, this could be as simple as upgrading a plug-in, but in other cases, entire systems and websites may have to be updated to effectively manage vulnerabilities. In other words, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and requirements will vary on a case-by-case basis. • Require Strong Passwords: Both ecommerce sites and digital businesses in general should require customers to create passwords that cannot be easily guessed by cybercriminals. While this can come in the form of general recommendations (i.e., discouraging the inclusion of phone numbers or birthdays), it can also mean rejecting certain passwords altogether. To be effective in their security goals, websites should require passwords that contain at a minimum 8 characters, including a combination of numbers, symbols, and uppercase and lowercase letters. Further, it is recommended that users leverage random word combinations (the revised passphrase method) or transform sentences into a password (the Bruce Schneier method). Above all, remember that length and obscurity is key. • Maintain Updated SSL/TLS Certificates: While maintaining an updated SSL/TLS certificate is essentially table-stakes for ecommerce merchants due to PCI and other industry regulations, it is critical

Courtney Radke Retail CISO, Fortinet

nonetheless and doing so allows businesses to realize a number of benefits. From a security standpoint, they help ensure their websites can stand up to cyberthreats, exploits, and website misuse while also keeping customer data secure by enforcing end-to-end encryption of data. From a reputational standpoint, the inclusion of “HTTPS” at the beginning of their page URL creates a sense of trustworthiness that will help customers feel more confident in the security of their digital experience. From a business standpoint, HTTPS allows for use of more powerful web platform features and API integrations that require permissions to execute such as Geolocation services. While these strategies are all crucial to the security of digital businesses, each one cannot stand on its own. Instead, security teams must weave a framework of tactics such as these to deliver the highest level of protection to keep their organizations and their customers secure.

Final Thoughts on Securing Digital Business

Digital transformation continues to change the way we do business, as well as what customers have come to expect. This is especially true across the ecommerce space. With more of the public shopping online now than ever before, businesses must ensure their websites can handle this influx of traffic, both from a performance and security standpoint. While there is no single foolproof way to manage ecommerce site security, businesses that take care to consider the basics when working to protect their customers set themselves up for success versus those that look to cut corners. FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

Making sure you have all the pieces of the cybersecurity puzzle Brian Pinnock, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast discusses the four elements can add up to a holistic cybersecurity strategy that protects customers, employees, and data from exploitation

Spare a thought for the modern CISO. The global cybercrime industry has been in overdrive since the start of the year, as threat actors capitalise on the disruption brought by the coronavirus pandemic.

email-borne attack in the coming year. This begs the question; do they have all the right measures in place to fully protect their organisation and be totally resilient?

The Mimecast Threat Centre found a dramatic increase in cyberattacks during the first 100 days of the pandemic. In Middle East and North Africa, spam attacks increased by 36% and malware by 22%.

What are the pieces of the cybersecurity puzzle? In our experience, the following four elements can add up to a holistic cybersecurity strategy that protects customers, employees, and data from exploitation:

Cybersecurity is a ‘complex puzzle’

To protect against these threats, organisations are having to build complex, multi-layered security strategies that safeguard customers, employees, and company data. The sheer volume of threats and the abundance of attack vectors makes effective cybersecurity a complex puzzle. In many cases, organisations have no clear idea of how to put those puzzle pieces together in an effective way. Encouragingly, 82% of organisations surveyed in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Mimecast’s State of Email Security 2020 report, say they have a cyber resilience strategy or are actively rolling one out. Yet, 67% of respondents still believe it’s inevitable or likely they will suffer from an

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1. Visibility

Without visibility over employees, data, and your online brand, building an effective cybersecurity strategy is a bit like building a puzzle in the dark. Threat intelligence can play a vital role by providing insight into how organisations are targeted, what cyber threats have been blocked and why, which employees are the riskiest and what actions to take to optimise the broader cybersecurity strategy. However, visibility should extend beyond the perimeter of the organisation. The speed at which cybercriminals can imitate brands online, makes it easy to launch sophisticated attacks using lookalike domains that can easily trick customers, partners, and employees.

» INSIGHT Tools such as DMARC, are effective and an essential piece of the puzzle, but only for protecting domains already owned by the organisation, against email brand exploitation. Supplementing DMARC with tools that protect against online brand exploitation can help identify attack patterns at the preparation stage and block compromised assets before they turn into live attacks. To fully protect a brand, an organisation should consider implementing DMARC along with brand exploitation tools, managed from one integrated system that provides both visibility and proactive remediation.

2. Resilience

All organisations regardless of size are at risk of cyberattack. While defences are important, being able to quickly recover from a successful attack is just as vital. Unplanned outages - such as those typical in cloud services such as Microsoft365 - can also disrupt business and lead to losses in productivity, revenue, and reputation. The State of Email Security report found that 60% of organisations in UAE and KSA experienced an Microsoft365 outage in the last 12 months. Email is still the most widely used business tool and email continuity solutions provide guaranteed access to email, from anywhere and on any device even when email servers fail. Cloud archiving can further help keep corporate knowledge available despite disruptions. And specialised sync-and-recover tools can fill data recovery gaps for those instances where data is corrupted or deleted - whether intentionally or by accident.

Brian Pinnock Cybersecurity Expert, Mimecast

3. Culture

Cybersecurity is at its most effective when every employee understands their role in protecting the organisation - and themselves - from attacks. Organisations should seek to instil a culture of cybersecurity awareness that permeates from the top to the bottom of the organisation.

achieving compliance. It is difficult for an organisation to achieve data management compliance with unstructured data like email. What’s key is to have a third party, independent and immutable data repository that complies to regulatory standards and mitigates legal risks.

Micro-learning together with engagement is the key. Ongoing training that is short, relatable, memorable and that regularly reinforces key concepts works. We know this, because during lockdown periods across the world, Mimecast researchers found that users in organizations that had Mimecast awareness training were 5 times less likely to fall prey to social engineering attacks than those that did not.

The importance of data security and protection is elevated with financial and criminal penalties. Organisations also need to consider the brand damage that is associated with data breaches. Email remains the number 1 attack vector for cyber-attacks. It is widely reported that 91% of all attacks start with an email, with some not even requiring malware.

Management teams should be ready to take swift action in the wake of a data breach, to ensure the threat is contained, damage mitigated, and the organisation is not at risk of non-compliance to prevailing regulations.

4. Compliance

While the UAE does not have a comprehensive data protection law at its federal level, there are laws in place that govern privacy and data security. Sector-specific data protection provisions exist for certain laws, while three special economic or sector free zones have specific data protection laws. These data protection laws keep UAE organisations accountable, placing them under pressure to protect customer data. Both data management and data protection are key elements in

Call for greater awareness, effort

There is no silver bullet when it comes to security, even when it comes to protecting against a specific attack – like phishing. The entire ecosystem needs to take security seriously or everyone remains at risk. Protecting your brand and customers with solutions like DMARC and tools that prevent brand impersonation online is important. But if the organisation at the receiving end of a phishing email does not have protections in place, they could fall victim to an attack. Ultimately, the entire business world needs to prioritise security and protect each other. The first step is to consider managing security solutions and resilience tools in an integrated system that helps reduce cost and complexity, and ultimately enhances the broader security ecosystem. FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

OVERCOMING ‘WORK FROM HOME’ SECURITY CHALLENGES

Krupa Srivatsan, Director, Cybersecurity Product Marketing at Infoblox writes about security beyond the VPN With the remote working trend on the rise due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many IT managers and corporate leaders have naturally been concerned about the challenges of securing employee’s access to the corporate network. Given the precipitous nature of the pandemic, organizations have had very little time to prepare for such large-scale remote work, let alone think about how to secure ‘work from home’ users. These remote workers still need to access enterprise applications in the cloud, and work with and store corporate data on their devices.

Think Outside the Perimeter – Security Challenges of Working from Home

Security teams now have to think about how to continue to protect corporate resources and data, when most of their employees are not within the corporate perimeter. The existing security stack within the corporate network is no longer sufficient to protect these teleworkers. In addition, teleworking exposes a much broader attack surface as workers use BYOD devices and mobile devices that share home and public Wi-Fi networks, often with a much larger variety of internet of things (IoT) devices than found in a typical work environment. Public Wi-Fi networks present a higher probability that authentication and credentials may be accidentally compromised.

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To take advantage of the chaotic nature of these times, bad actors and hackers have been busy launching coronavirus themed cyber-attacks and weaponizing well-known websites that try to provide useful, timely information for the general public. COVID-19 has become the subject line of choice for phishing/spear-phishing campaigns that seek to take advantage of the heightened level of fear and concern.

Let’s take a look at some rising threats that we could encounter.

Rising Threat #1 – Coronavirus Related Malware Campaigns During March last year, our cyber intelligence unit noted that LokiBot infostealer joined the list of malware campaigns being distributed by cybercriminals taking advantage of the fear and interest in the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19). We observed two malicious spam email campaigns distributing LokiBot under the guise of providing information on the Coronavirus impact to supply chains. LokiBot has become popular with cybercriminals as an information stealer that collects credentials and security tokens from infected machines. LokiBot targets multiple applications, including but not limited to Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Thunderbird, as well as FTP.

» INSIGHT The email messages of the primary campaign had two subject lines, one of which alleged to be a supply chain update in the context of Coronavirus (COVID-19). The other subject had a more typical payment transfer theme. Both sets of messages had attached files with the same filename that delivered the malicious code.

Rising Threat #2 – Lookalike Domains

Another threat that could be on the rise is Lookalike Domains. Cybercriminals are moving to lookalike domains to fool victims in their efforts to impersonate the target organization or brand. Often phishing websites feature domains that impersonate the real brand. These are crafted by cybercriminals to resemble the legitimate brand’s domain. Character substitution is a popular technique employed by cybercriminals with the goal of manipulating users into exposing credit cards, passwords, and other sensitive data. Researchers also found that cybercriminals are using valid Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates which is an attempt to make the lookalike domains appear legitimate. In late 2019, researchers note that there were more than 100,000 lookalike domains impersonating legitimate retailers. Industries that can be heavily impacted by these types of attacks are retail and banking, where users typically enter their credentials to execute a transaction.

Krupa Srivatsan

Director, Cybersecurity Product Marketing, Infoblox

Rising Threat #3 – Data Exfiltration

Your work from home users are still accessing, interacting with and storing corporate data on their devices, as part of their day to day business operations. But they are now doing it outside the corporate perimeter. That data, even if stored on company-provided devices, could be exposed to theft. DNS tunneling or data exfiltration is an attacker technique that uses malware to gather sensitive data from a compromised system. It packages up the data into small chunks and embeds them within a string of DNS queries. The DNS queries carrying the data are then delivered to a server hosted by the attacker on the Internet, where the stolen data can be easily reassembled.

Rising Threat #4 – Non-Compliant Website Access

While this is not technically an attack or a malicious campaign launched by bad actors, companies could still be faced with the problem of their work from users accessing websites and destinations not in compliance with their policy during working hours using corporate provided devices. This could include websites related to social media, violence and adult content. While it’s second nature for employees working in the office to know that such access is not appropriate or compliant, at home those same employees may have more of a lax attitude. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have been touted by some as a solution to the challenge of securing employee’s access to the corporate network. VPNs encrypt a user’s web traffic and send it through a private connection to the corporate network, allowing employees to access corporate data and applications with some measure of security and privacy. Today, however, due to the proliferation of cloud-based applications like Office 365, SFDC, Google Drive, and others, it is un-

common for organizations to rely solely on VPN-based access to corporate resources. Instead, VPN is usually used to access just a small subset of internal corporate platforms, leaving remote users unprotected when accessing these cloud-based applications, and exposed to threats on the internet. Furthermore, VPNs may not provide the level of security that’s necessary in today’s threat environment. Malicious cyber actors are finding and targeting vulnerabilities in VPNs as employees increasingly use them for telework amid the pandemic. And since VPNs are considered 24/7 infrastructure—that is they are always on to facilitate secure connection to the enterprise network—organizations are less likely to keep them updated with the latest patches. Finally, since many VPN providers charge by the user, many organizations may have a limited number of VPN connections available, meaning that any additional employees can no longer telework or securely access corporate data. In this environment, one of the best and most cost-effective ways enterprises can secure such a large-scale tele-workforce is by using DNS as a first line of defense. Every connection to the internet goes through DNS—those working from home are typically using either public DNS or DNS provided by their internet service provider, both of which seldom do security enforcement on DNS. Companies are increasingly interested in implementing secure DNS services that can quickly start protecting their remote workforce. A recommendation is to use secure DNS services that can extend enterprise-level security to teleworking employees, their devices, and corporate networks, no matter where they are located. FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» TECHSHOW

DXS-3610 SERIES MANAGED SWITCHES The D-Link DXS-3610 Series Layer 3 Stackable 10G/100G Managed Switches are ideal for core/aggregation networks in datacenters and enterprise applications. The DXS-3610 Layer 3 Stackable 10G/100G Managed Switches are compatible with SDN-enabled network architecture for deployment in high-performance datacenter, enterprise, and campus applications. Hot-swappable PSU and fan modules with load sharing capabilities significantly reduce network downtime and power consumption. Stackable up to 12 units and high port density makes the DXS-3610 the ideal choice for future-proofing your aggregation/ core network. The DXS-3610 Series boasts high-performance 10G Ethernet switching capacity of up to 2.16 Tbps with forwarding rates of up to 1607 Mpps. The DXS-3610 Series also features a modular fan back-up design, providing n+1 redundancy for the system. The modular power design allows either AC or DC power sources for maximum deployment flexibility. With dual power modules, the power load is distributed, extending the lifetime of the modules.

• Perfect for small to medium-sized data centers in enterprise or campus applications using leaf-spine or top-of-rack (ToR) architecture. • OpenFlow 1.3 compliance for SDN-enabled network compatibility • Modular PSU (1+1) and fan (N+1) with load sharing capabilities

Highlights:

• Switch Resource Management (SRM) for flexible system resource manageability

• High speed network infrastructure with multiple interfaces

• Switch locator LED and ID tag for maintenance convenience

• Stack up to 12 switches (up to 1.2 Tbps stacking bandwidth)

• Upgradable license for full L3 and MPLS applications

HP ELITE DRAGONFLY G2 The HP Elite Dragonfly G2 gives people the freedom to move around the house or the office as the world’s lightest compact business convertible11 with a starting weight at less than 1 kg.12 It is also part of the world’s most sustainable PC portfolio13 with striking finishes and accents that incorporate recycled materials, including ocean-bound plastics.14 The device offers incredible power through 11th Gen Intel Core processors15 and new Intel integrated graphics and allows users to stay connected through impressively fast 5G16 or gigabit-class 4G LTE connectivity,17 with Tile now built in.18 The striking Dragonfly Blue chassis is a convertible 2-in-1 with an easyto-clean design. New and improved features include crystal clear sound with Audio by Bang & Olufsen, now AI-enabled to maximize the audio experience for speech, music, and movies. HP’s new intrusion detection technology, HP Tamper Lock,

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

» TECHSHOW

VERITAS NETBACKUP 9 Veritas Technologies, a global leader in data protection, availability and insights, announced the launch of Veritas NetBackup 9, the latest installment of its enterprise-level data backup and recovery suite. NetBackup 9 delivers significant new features to provide customers with additional choices for deployment across edge, core and cloud, while increasing operational simplicity. NetBackup 9 has been designed to answer the needs of customers operating demanding multi-cloud data centers with heterogenous environments that require a data protection platform without compromise. With NetBackup 9, Veritas now adds Flex Scale, offering customers a scale-out deployment option based on Veritas’ validated reference design. This new architecture provides a hyperconverged approach to data protection that delivers cloud-like simplicity and scalability in an on-premises data center. With NetBackup Flex Scale, businesses no longer need to forecast capacity needs and provision in anticipation of future growth. Instead, they are able to simply add more nodes as required. By empowering enterprises to extend their standardization on Veritas to include scale-out, customers can be freed from the management complexity associated with disparate point solutions for data protection. Highlights: NetBackup’s secure data protection eliminates silos, reduces risk to ransomware attacks, helps ensure compliance and governance requirements are met, and maximizes ROI. Many companies have accelerated digital transformation projects in the last year. However, their implementation of data

management tools has failed to keep pace with this change. NetBackup 9 helps plug this gap, delivering enterprise-grade data management capabilities.

Highlights: • • • • •

NetBackup 9 ensures data protection and recovery across any source, any cloud, any workload, in any deployment model. In NetBackup 9, with the addition of NetBackup Flex Scale, companies can scale-out as capacity needs change Advanced, policy-driven automation to manage all aspects of deployment, provisioning, scaling, load-balancing, cloud integration and recovery operations Auto discovery of workloads to accelerate time- to-value for data protection services, eliminate gaps in protection and reduce risk. API-first focus that expands and deepens integrations into enterprises existing toolchains and cloud-based workflows.

locks the PC if it has been physically opened or compromised and notifies the user.

Key Features • Starting under 1kg1, the HP Elite Dragonfly series provides mobility beyond expectation in an x360 touch laptop. • Striking finishes and accents highlight the design, while ocean-bound plastics6,31 are used in the speaker enclosure and display bezel. • With the optional Tile solution, you can use an app to help you find your device even when your PC is turned off. • With HP Fast Charge, get up to 50% battery life in just 30 minutes of charging.

FEBRUARY 2021 / CXO DX

» TRENDS & STATS

COVID-19 ACCELERATES DEMAND FOR ROBOTIC G2P TECHNOLOGIES IN WAREHOUSES Through 2023, demand for robotic goods-to-person (G2P) systems will quadruple to help enforce social distancing in warehouses, according to Gartner, Inc. With G2P systems, the robots deliver the goods to a person who remains in one place. “Fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is increasing demand for robotics in warehouses and distribution centers,” said Dwight Klappich, vice president analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. “G2P systems are an easy and economical way to not only enforce social distancing, but also improve productivity.” While there’s a variety of technological solutions to address social distancing in warehouses – including technology that traces each employee’s move – robotic systems are easier to implement and less invasive. “Keeping people in place and using a virus-resistant robot to move goods around respects people’s privacy and keeps them safe at the same time,” Mr. Klappich added. In addition to this short-term value, G2P systems also drive broader long-term improvements in efficiency and productivity. Advanced systems also offer additional benefits such as improved storage density. Gartner also predicts that through 2024, 50% of supply chain organizations will invest in applications that support artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics (AA) capabilities. “The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need for supply chain organizations to seek tools that help them make better and more informed decisions faster,” said Andrew Stevens, senior director analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. “Leading organi-

zations use AI and AA to dig through the vast amounts of data they generate to understand what is happening in their business now and – more importantly – what is likely to happen in the future.” Companies will continue to invest in applications that embed, augment or apply AI and AA tools. This may be to address foundational areas such as data quality or connecting disparate silos, or strategic objectives such as migrating to more automated, resilient and smarter applications. “Supply chain leaders should adopt a broad and holistic perspective when it comes to AI and AA. These technologies are increasingly ubiquitous, and there are many ways in which they can be applied – such as data mining for smart manufacturing, visibility tools and autonomous transportation, and to aid customer retention,” Mr. Stevens concluded.

CLOUD-BASED IMAGE RECOGNITION SOLUTIONS SEEING DEMAND GROWTH The Global Image Recognition in Retail Market is estimated to be USD 1.5 Bn in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 3.7 Bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 20%, according to a report from ResearchAndMarkets. Image Recognition means identifying a specific image and placing it in a predetermined category. It uses computer algorithms for digital image processing and thus helps in processing videos and removing blur images. The technology further allows images to convert into two or more defined dimensions, which categorize the digital image processing as multidimensional systems. Image recognition in retail includes the technologies which help to enhance the in-store experiences of customers. The use of high bandwidth data services in the retail and BFSI sector can be attributed to the growth of the image recognition market. android devices with cameras are attracting vendors to invest in

CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2021

the market. Increasing demand for security in products and applications is also influencing the growth of the image recognition market. Large enterprises in different sectors, such as retail, automotive, healthcare, and defense, are increasingly adopting image recognition technology. Several other fields, such as self-driving vehicles, automated image organization of visual websites, and face identification on social networking websites, are using the Image recognition technology powered by machine learning.

POWERSTORE

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Data-centric, intelligent, and adaptable infrastructure that supports both traditional and modern workloads Introducing Intel ® based PowerStore from Dell Technologies –

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CXO DX February 2021

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TRENDS & STATS

OVERCOMING ‘WORK

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MAKING SURE YOU

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THREE WAYS

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TOTAL SECURITY

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NEWS

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