Gordon Love, the Vice President for MEA at Mandiant, says digitalisation is on the rise in the region

Are you participating in GITEX Global 2022? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at the event? 
GITEX is one of the key events on our calendar in the region. This year, we’ll be showcasing Mandiant Advantage, our multi-vendor XDR platform that delivers Mandiant’s expertise and frontline intelligence to security teams of all sizes.

One of the modules within Mandiant Advantage is Attack Surface Management which allows organisations to see themselves through the eyes of the attacker. This has rapidly become a top priority given the sharp uptick in adoption of cloud, SaaS, and mobile across a distributed workforce which leads to an expanding, evolving, and changing attack surface subject to an increasing number of sophisticated threats. Organisations can use the insights from Attack Surface Management to continuously discover and monitor their exposures and enable intelligence and red teams to operationalise and inform risk management.

What are your expectations from the event this year? What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? 
GITEX provides a great opportunity to engage our customers and partners, as well as other organisations looking for ways to improve their cyber security posture. One thing we can always count on in the cyber realm is the level of uncertainty. Attackers regularly change their approach to evade detection, leaving defenders struggling to keep up, so we’ll be talking to organisations about taking a country/industry/company-specific intelligence-led approach to strengthening their defenses.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? 
Across the MEA and emerging region, we have a strong local presence, with a team based across the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, Poland, Romania, and serving the whole region. Approximately half of the team is part of our consulting business, and as a business, we help organisations and government entities to develop more effective and efficient cyber security programs and instill confidence in their readiness to defend against and respond to cyber threats.

Digitalisation is on the rise in the region and although it holds immense potential for huge rewards, it also brings with it significant risks that organisations need to ensure they’re well-prepared to tackle. Mandiant’s latest M-Trends 2022 report confirms that professional and financial services, healthcare, retail, high tech, and government were the most frequent targets of cyber attackers throughout 2021, but no matter what the industry or size, every organisation should be working to strengthen and test their defenses.

We continue to initiate more dialogue with executive management in the region around cyber risk and the impacts proactive and reactive measures have on an organisation’s risk profile. Our approach, derived from numerous program transformations helps organisations identify, map, and drive down risks in a meaningful and methodical way.