As the Middle East IT industry continues to transform and embrace digitisation, what are the greatest threats it faces today?
In the wake of a series of cyber attacks that targeted Saudi Arabia government agencies and private firms, security experts have warned Middle East organisations to strengthen and prioritise their defences.
Middle East organisations, both public and private, are finding themselves at the forefront of the cyber security battle.
Some of the biggest cyber security attacks of 2016 were on several Saudi Arabia government agencies, which were targeted in a series of attacks over a two-week period, erasing data and wreaking havoc in the computer banks of the agency running the country’s airports and hitting five additional targets. The Saudi state media confirmed the attacks happened over a two-week period, in November 2016, but no further details were provided.
Experts said the attacks involved the use of a new variant of Shamoon (Shamoon 2), a malware tool that made headlines five years ago for erasing the hard disks of more than 30,000 computers belonging to petroleum giant Saudi Aramco.
