5 November 2024, Tue |
2:40 PM
The UAE Cybersecurity Council and GISEC Global 2023, the Middle East’s largest and most impactful cybersecurity event, released a special position paper for global CISOs and cybersecurity professionals titled “A GISEC-first Strategy: Attack is the best form of Defence”.
Co-authored by H.E. Dr Mohamed Hamad Al-Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security, UAE Government, and Dr Aloysius Cheang, Chief Security Officer, Huawei Middle East & Central Asia, the paper urges global CISOs to “take the fight to cyber attackers by following the age-old adage: attack is the best form of defence.”
The article cautions businesses that presuming they won’t experience a cyberattack “is no longer a luxury we can afford,” particularly given that ransomware attacks are predicted to continue to be common this year. “The time is ripe for us to take a proactive approach to defend our assets rather than being reactive.”
It stated that cybercrime is highly rewarding financially for successful attacks, the primary driver for escalating cybercrime, while the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical instability, and rapid de-globalisation have fuelled global tensions, sparking off a “paradox of a global cyber pandemic amid rapid digital transformation and growth”.
The UAE was not spared of these changes, and the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic cultivated an urgent need to increase the pace of digital transformation, hence “paving the way for the UAE to establish itself as a trusted regional digital hub.”
The four-page position piece added that a GISEC-first strategy encourages CISOs to take a proactive approach because the traditional reactive model is simply ineffective. “Today, only 19% of global cyber leaders are confident that their organisations are cyber resilient,” it stated. “Further, the need for more effective cyber defence tactics is only becoming more urgent as digitisation takes hold. By 2025, digital transformation will inject $100 trillion into the world economy, according to the WEF.”
The editorial concludes that GISEC Global “is a treasure trove of tools, providing the necessary people-process-technology support that we can harness to realise our strategy and burn cybersecurity into the DNA of our organisations, keeping the enemies at bay and on the back foot, pushing them to be on a constant retreat from our line of defence and pushing it deep within enemies’ territories with no time to create havoc for us making it economically inviable.”
“These cyber adversaries will eventually collapse like a house of cards as we enter a new era where the CISOs finally enter the boardroom and be counted as equals among our peers. And that is where the CISO revolution starts, not ended as we usher in the new digital era and the CISOs as the guardians of this new digital era.”
The UAE Cybersecurity Council has published a document just as high-level cybersecurity executives are about to reveal CISO’s 2023 strategy at the GISEC Global event. The strategy aims to decipher the increase in cyberattacks and expenses while managing the constantly changing threat environment.
Organised by Dubai World Trade Centre and hosted by the UAE Cybersecurity Council, the 11th edition of GISEC Global takes place from 14-16 March 2023 at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC). With the theme of ‘Connecting minds, boosting cyber resilience,’ the event is set to host a record 500-plus cybersecurity brands, 300 leading InfoSec and cybersecurity speakers, and 1,000 of the world’s top ethical hackers to address opportunities in a global cybersecurity market valued at $2 trillion by McKinsey & Company.
During GISEC, the UAE Cybersecurity Council will display its most recent National Security Operations Center (NSOC), and on March 15 at the CISO Lounge in Hall 4, an exclusive GISEC CISO Circle will be held with the subject “Building a united cyber frontier.”
During this session, leading regional and global CISOs will come together in an exclusive community of action for the cybersecurity industry. The objective is to adopt a fundamental cybersecurity strategy with a shared focus on a proactive approach of pushing the last line of defence away from the company’s digital assets and towards the cyber attackers.
GISEC Global 2023 will feature global technology leaders including Huawei, Microsoft, Cisco, Honeywell, and du showcasing their innovative cybersecurity solutions, alongside industry-leading infosec companies such as Spire Solutions, CPX, Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Pentera, Pvotal, Port53, Cloudfare, Edgio, Secureworks, Synack, Threatlocker, Votiro, Spidersilk, and Waterfall.
The Ministry of Interior, the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), and the Dubai Police are Official Supporters of GISEC Global 2023. The Dubai Electronic Security Center (DESC) is the Official Government Cyber Security Partner. More than 35,000 guests from more than 100 nations are anticipated.
