The Middle East and North Africa Information Security Conference (MENA ISC 2022) began recently with a two-day international conference on cybersecurity, “Cyber Fusion: Converging Cyber Intel: Critical Network Infrastructure IT, OT, and IoT.”
Spread over different sessions, the global conference focused on the rising cyber-attacks on network infrastructure in countries around the world, posing a significant threat to the economies of these countries, including that of Saudi Arabia, which is the largest market for information and communication technology in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Eng. Samir Omar, CEO of MENA ISC 2022, said: “The 10th edition of the conference aimed to discuss the importance of protecting critical infrastructure sectors from cyberattacks, as it can threaten vital sectors, affect the economy, health, and safety harshly.”
Stressing the importance of the conference, Eng. Samir, who is also the Chief Strategy Security Advisor of MENA ISC 2022, said the global conference has gathered the top experts from all over the world in the field of cybersecurity to share their experience in the field as the world continues to grapple with the threat. The conference will contribute to the growth of this sector in the region.
Retired US Marine Corps Lieutenant-General, Vincent Raymond Stewart, said the concept of cyber resilience helps companies and organizations prepare, prevent, respond to, confront, and successfully recover from cyber threats; To reach the required safe state.
Stewart who was the Deputy Commander of the United States Cyber Command, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy’s Cyberspace Command, where he was the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense said cyber resilience should be a priority within companies to ensure that business operations are not affected.
Gen. Vincent was speaking on “Cyber Resilience: An Operational Requirement in the Current Business Environment.”
Other key speakers who engaged in the intense discussion included Jason Rivera, who spoke about Sophisticated Web of Attacks: Understanding The Cohesive Ecrime Adversary Universe; and Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of Kaspersky, spoke on “Cyber Immunity for The Cyber Age.”
Arcon’s Chief Mentor Anil Bhandari spoke on “Digital identity and Privacy: Stories from the Frontline” and said the fundamentals of risk management are undergoing rapid changes that required a quick response.
Bhandari selected three factors that, according to him, are driving the success of business models through digitization: revenue growth, profit generation, and the combination of growth and efficiency through digitization.
Besides, Rasha Abu AlSaud, CISO at SNB, talked about “An Evolving Cybersecurity Mindset, followed by Fatimah Alturkistani, Cyber Security Enablement Director who spoke about “Building a Cyber Security Culture: Empowering Employees as Your First Line of Defense”.
The conference will conclude on Wednesday with several keynote speakers speaking on a range of equally relevant subjects and a number of workshops. Wissam Al-Zamil, Head of Cybersecurity at CNTXT, is expected to talk about (“Cybersecurity for The Cloud-First & Go-Digital Era: Re-Thinking Today’s Cybersecurity Model in A World Powered By Digital And Emerging Technologies, And Shifting To The Cloud”).
The 10th edition of MENAISC included leading firms from around the world with CyberKnight as Diamond Distribution Sponsor and CrowdStrike as its diamond sponsor. Platinum sponsors were arcon and IT Security Training & Solutions – I(TS)2 in addition to gold sponsorships by Advanced Technical Solutions (ATS), ankura, kaspersky, Mandiant, proofpoint, SentinelOne and Tenable, and silver sponsorships by Acronis, ANOMALI, BeyondTrust, Bitdefender, Forcepoint, ClearSkies, ODYSSEY, Security Scorecard, ThreatQuotient, Tripwire, and ZeroFox. Marcom Arabia and Nozomi Networks as a strategic partners. W7Worldwide was listed as Organizing Partner and Media Sponsors.
CyberKnight, a leading Value Added Distributor (VAD), also having participation from the following companies: Appgate, Bluecat, Checkmarx, Entrust, Group-IB, helpsystems, illumio, netwrix, PhishRod, Seceon, Seclore, and SolarWinds.
