Mr. Mirza Asrar Baig featured in the Network Middle East Security Survey 2016

1. // SECURITY / NME SECURITY SURVEY
// WWW.ITP.NET /// 76 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / OCTOBER 2016 /
he only constant in the cyber security scene
is change, usually for the worse.
Every year, new threats emerge while
supposedly dead ones magically resurrect
with renewed, and destructive, vigour.
2016 is no different as our Network Middle
Eats Security Survey reveals.
Most respondents to the survey, majority of whom are IT deci-
sion makers in their organisations, say they plan to increase their
security spending in 2016. In 2015, 21% said they would spend be-
tween 0-10,000 USD on cybersecurity. In 2016, the majority (19%)
said their firms planned to spend between 50,000-100,000 USD.
The cybersecurity market spending is bound to increase con-
sidering emergent threats and digitalisation strategies of regional
businesses, notes Ahmed Baig, founder & C.E.O of the CISO Coun-
cil. Ahmed Baig cites figures from Gartner that predict a global
increase of 7.9 percent in cybersecurity solutions spend in 2016 to-
talling $ 81 billion while Forbes forecasts the global cybersecurity
market to be worth $ 170 billion by 2020.
Cherif Sleiman, general manager, Middle East and Africa at
Infoblox reckons the statistics from the survey are very conserva-
tive. He believes the figure should be in the neighbourhood of 80%
of organisations planning to spend over 100,000 dollars. His senti-
ments are based on key overarching drivers. One is geo-political
conflicts in the region playing out in cyber space through hacktiv-
ism. Second, cybercriminals have transitioned from simple vandal-
ism to data exfiltration for profit.
Lastly, hackers have found new vulnerable ways of getting into
organisations’ networks, DNS. “Two years ago, majority of breach-
es were typically through HTTP. From last year however, DNS has
emerged as the leading threat vector, as acknowledged by experts
at Cisco, IDC etc.” says Sleiman.
“DNS is trusted by all networking and security products so
T
Mirza Baig says most organisations may not even be aware data exfiltration may have
taken place in their environment.
In most cases, even businesses with BYOD policy have insufficient monitoring & audit-
ing, notes Ahmed Baig.
when cybercriminals use DNS for ransomware and data exfiltra-
tion, organisations are helpless,” he says.
The portion of the IT budget dedicated to cyber security solu-
tions is indeed becoming larger. There are three reasons for this,
according to Nicolai Solling, director of technology services at
Help AG: One is that security solutions tend to be pricey. Second,
the issues we are trying to deal are much more sophisticated and
much more present than a few years ago; and third, there’s much
more awareness about cyber security within the boardroom as op-
posed to just the IT department. “Cybersecurity is something that
impacts everyone as our lives become more impacted by IT and
online behaviour,” Solling says.
Unsurprisingly, Our survey noted a sharp rise in awareness of
ransomware, from 26% from our 2015 survey to 84% of respond-
ents saying they have heard of ransomware in 2016.
The rise is understandable, says Stephen Brennan, DarkMat-
ter’s senior vice president of cyber network defence. He says indi-HOW MUCH MONEY, IN US DOLLARS, DID YOUR
ORGANISATION SPEND ON IT SECURITY IN 2015?
0-10,000
10,000-50,000
50,000-100,000
100,000-500,000
More than 500,000
I don’t know
Rather not say
CYBER SECURITY
INNOVATION PARTNER