Q: In your opinion, what are the top 3-5 cyber security challenges/aspects/gaps that are prevalent in the MEA region? Why do you think organisations find it difficult to address them?
A: Based on global data and the extensive research that Trend Micro conducts, below are some of the key cybersecurity challenges that the MEA region is facing now and, and business decision makers should be more aware of:
- Ransomware – the nature in which it can affect business and crate major outbreaks, proves that it is still a threat for all users and enterprises.
- Exploits and vulnerabilities – critical and controversial vulnerabilities were exploited by cybercriminals for their ransomware campaigns; we’ve also seen an increase in zero-day vulnerabilities, especially in the SCADA space
- BEC – despite growing awareness, BEC threats still rose in 2017, and we predict the same for 2018.
- Cryptocurrency threats – the rise of cryptocurrency is inspiring mining malware and other persistent threats.
Q: With recent large scaleattacks across the globe, what are your key tips for companies to effectively plan and mitigate risks, threats and attacks?
A: Having a connected threat defense ensures maximum protection against the constantly evolving threats. Enterprises can minimize the risk of compromise at all layers with cross-generational threat defense techniques that blend traditional protections with newer, more advanced techniques. Executives must also prioritize vulnerability and patch management as they finalize 2018 cybersecurity plans, and employee education should be prioritized in order to protect an organization’s most critical data.
Q: Cyber security is ranked as a high priority in Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030. How can your company support Saudi Arabia’s efforts of addressing cyber security collectively?
A: As the world’s leading Cyber Security company, Trend Micro is uniquely positioned to Support the Saudi Vision 2030 in many ways. To mention a few:
— Developing Cyber Security Talents and Creating Job Opportunities: Trend Micro is training, developing and helping to find jobs for cyber security talents in the region. This is part of Trend’s prestigious Cyber Security Academy program for fresh university graduates.
— Raising Cyber Security National Awareness and Enhancing Safety for Children and Families Against Cyber Terrorism: Trend Micro’s programs for Internet Safety for Kids & Families (ISKF) helps raise the awareness among youth and families in the domain of cyber security as well as support them to learn skills to help them safeguard themselves against cyber terrorism, and to remain safe in a truly digital and environment.
— Investing in the Security of Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) keeping them safe and focused on their growth: Trend Micro helps SMEs with cost effective solutions that protect their important digital workloads whether on cloud or on premise, while providing them with Worry-Free Services for IT Security.
— Protecting the digital transformation of Saudi government organizations and large enterprises through deploying the world’s leading End-To-End Cyber Security Platform: Trend Micro’s platform covers all cyber security needs for the full IT landscape including End-point protection, Hybrid-cloud & data center infrastructure, Networks & IoT, as well as Custom Systems & Applications such as SAP HANA or Microsoft Share Point. The platform as well covers all industries and sectors including compliance with diverse industry standards such as HIPAA in Healthcare or FSA in Banking. Additionally, the platform supports all operation environments including physical, virtual or a mix and all deployment environments including public cloud, private cloud, on premise or hybrid which gives great flexibility of the organizations to control how they want to structure and secure their IT infrastructure and workloads.
— Helping to Diversify the Country’s Revenue Sources: by providing a Managed Service Partnership program with organizations that want to utilize their Trend Micro cyber security infrastructure, resources and expertise to provide security solutions and services to other customer organizations and create new revenue streams.
Q: What are you plans for Saudi Arabia? Do you have any special initiatives you would like to announce or push in the Kingdom? What are some of the benefits of these initiatives?
A: Trend Micro recognizes KSA for its strategic leadership position in the region. This is why Trend Micro is transforming its strategy in the region to align with KSA’s position as well as to best support the region’s growth and advancement. This can be clearly seen in Trend’s plans and initiatives in the region.
Trend Micro is also reestablishing its regional headquarters for the MENA region in Saudi Arabia, and the new office will be the business and operational hub that supports the Kingdom, as well as the entire region.
We are currently hiring and attracting more Saudi talents to work for Trend Micro both males and females in different business or technical role capacities to support the country and grow Saudi talent pool. We are also launching a Cyber Security Training center to help train Saudi talents in the field of cyber security abroad and in-country then re-deploy them to support the Saudi market and the region.
Trend Micro is also establishing a world class Arabic Technical Support Center in the region to support our Arabic speaking customers and help provide a more agile resolution to their technical needs.
We are also building and Operating a state of the art Trend Micro Security Operations Center (SOC) in the region to enable our customers to offload their security operations to Trend Micro and focus on their core businesses.
We are introducing a new and improved channel programs to attract more partners within the region, while helping them to not just grow, but to sustain that growth. We are also extending enhanced support to our existing channel ecosystem, so that we can better support and expand their businesses both technically, and financially.
We are also keen on researching, reporting and analyzing top security issues impacting Saudi Arabia and the MENA region and developing thought leadership security reports published for the benefit of our Arabic readers as well as the whole information security community in the region.
Q: How do you continue to bring value to your customers in such a consistent basis?
A: Trend global strategy has always been and will always be oriented around its customers. Trend Micro invests heavily in making sure that its products, services and solutions are both cutting edge and always on top of any known and unknown security issues that could impact customers at any time. This is done by adopting an “XGen” approach to detect, determine, respond and prevent any security threat. Rather than relying only on one Next-Gen approach like behavioral analysis or machine learning as other vendors do, Trend Micro “XGen” technology combines all approaches together in a smart way to protect our customers against the full range of known and unknown threats using a cross generational blend of threat defense techniques that applies the right technique at the right time, and is powered by global threat intelligence. The technology is also optimized to protect user end points, networks, and hybrid cloud environments – all designed specifically for and tightly integrated with leading platforms and applications, like VMware, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft® Azure™, Google Cloud, Office365, and more. Finally, the technology is connected in a way that speeds time to response with automatic sharing of threat intelligence across security layers and centralized visibility and control. The sum of the above is uniquely and exclusively something that is only available in the Trend Micro platform which always insured a high, consistent and immediate value to our customers.
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