The Kingdom fights back against Cyber Crime

Cyber-Crime is not a new phenomenon, but it’s hitting the headlines as never before, with organization across GCC suffering high profile and damaging reaches. The growing frequency and sophistication of these cyber-threats have exposed the companies to new risks and devastating consequences thereby threatening the very existence of the business. No longer considered an IT issue, but rather one of strategic business risk, cyber security is now a core component of governance.

The 4th edition of Kingdom Cyber Security Meeting aims to address these issues that continue to challenge the business leaders of today to rethink their defence strategy to counter the persistent threat of cyber-attacks. As cybercriminals increasingly profit from brazen attacks, the corporation's cyber-risk strategy is under the microscope. The event will take place from18 to 19 April 2017 at the Mövenpick Hotel in Riyadh, and will feature more than 20 speakers that will be addressing aspects related to critical infrastructure protection, advanced persistent threat prevention, securing the cloud, mobile, big data and social platforms, risk management, business continuity and disaster recovery.

Speaking about the important steps to be taken by the Kingdom, Dr. Taghreed Justinia Asst. Professor and Program Director for Health Informatics at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, said: “We are a country with a uniquely vast geography of cities still distinctly separated and still under development. We have rapidly developing urbanisation projects like economic cities, university communities, medical cities and many others underway or recently completed.

We also have an advanced and reliable telecommunications infrastructure that would support a vision favouring smart cities. With the setting supporting the development of smart cities, it is necessary to focus on securing the infrastructure and data. Getting citizens and various agencies involved in unifying the vision is an important step. With that, investing in cyber security alongside any investment in smart city development is a necessity and must be considered in the planning and budgeting stages of any project, and not left to later stages or only when there is a security threat.” Abubakar Arshad, Cyber Security Advisor at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority Bahrain, added: “Artificial intelligence is one of the most crucial technological developments of our times. It is changing every aspect of technologies around us and with respect to Cyber Security, today criminals are using Artificial intelligence to hack into the most sophisticated systems. This trend is set to continue exponentially.

Therefore, as cyber security professionals, we need to be aware of the threat and also adopt AI technologies to protect against Cyber Security threats from organized cyber criminals and nation states.” As we move to an era of Codewars, organizations and governments need to be vigilant and adaptive. Tools such as cognitive thinking and artificial intelligence will help us to enhance our cyber security capabilities greatly.

In the next few years we will see greater damage happening from Cyber-attacks. It will include financial losses as well as physical damage as critical infrastructure will continue to be targeted. With the rise of Internet of things, our dependence on digital world will increase significantly and hence the impact of cyber-attacks will increase proportionally.” Abubakar added. Set against the backdrop of the growing cyber menace and with the emerging need of aligning security closely to the business imperatives,

The Kingdom Cyber Security Meeting, through its agenda will contribute to the efforts in building region’s robust and resilient cyber security strategy that extends beyond the compliance tick and enhances the defensive capability. The agenda offers invaluable advice and best practice guidance through peer-led interactive sessions, thought provoking debates, real-life case studies, and live demos; giving each participant a learning experience unique to their professional needs. This market is booming with rapid infrastructure development and we must keep up the pace of security alongside the speed of these rapid development projects and mega projects that have been implemented, are under development or are planned in the near future. Cyber security is of key interest to anyone involved with IT. I've decided to join this particular event because, as a leader in the IT realm, it is important for me to be involved and advocate for cyber security and protection of our data and assets.” Dr. Taghreed concluded. The 4th Annual Kingdom Cyber Security Meeting will be held at the Mövenpick Hotel in Riyadh on the 18th and 19th of April 2017.

The event is organized by Fleming and sponsored by SecureWorks, Cyberia, Attivo Networks, Security Matterz, PhishME, Simeio, Oregon Systems, Owl Computing Technologies, ife, Infoblox, nexthink and Enzar. The event is endorsed by ISACA Riyadh Chapter and in partnership with EC-Council.