GITEX
GITEX Global 2022: Fortinet to Help Businesses Address Their Most Pressing Cybersecurity Challenges

Alain Penel, the Regional Vice President for the Middle East at Fortinet, says live demos will be hosted at its stand
Are you participating in GITEX Global 2022? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at the event?
Fortinet’s focus at GITEX this year is to enable businesses to address their most pressing cybersecurity challenges, including the severe cybersecurity skills gap and the explosion of the edge with the work-from-anywhere approach. They need a broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity mesh platform that provides centralized management and visibility, supports, and interoperates across a vast ecosystem of solutions, and automatically adapts to dynamic changes in the network. These are precisely the core attributes of the Fortinet Security Fabric.
Our Fortinet Security Fabric mesh architecture has been available for several years now, and over time, customers keep adding to it. Our portfolio of more than 50 security and networking technologies is designed from the ground up to interoperate, share threat intelligence, correlate data, and automatically respond to threats as a single, coordinated system.
On-site, visitors will experience the key pillars of the Fortinet Security Fabric such as the Zero-Trust Network which enables consistent, seamless, enterprise-class security across all applications, no matter where they are, for all users, no matter where they are; Security Operations which provides AI-driven security operations that can function at machine speed to keep up with the volume, sophistication, and speed of today’s cyber threats; Network Security which addresses digital acceleration challenges by tightly integrating network infrastructure with advanced security across all edges; and Cloud Security which delivers visibility and control across cloud infrastructures, enabling secure applications and connectivity in the data center and across cloud resources while maximizing the benefits of cloud computing.
Also, in focus will be FortiSASE, Fortinet’s cloud-delivered security that secures remote users and is powered by widely deployed FortiOS and FortiGuard AI-powered security services including SWG, FWaaS, ZTNA, CASB to allow organizations to shift from a CAPEX to OPEX business model.
What are your expectations from the event this year?
As the world has outgrown the pandemic to an extent, organizations will be looking at their technology investments from a new perspective; one that will ensure their businesses’ overall security posture and boost businesses’ continuity. This year GITEX will be a platform for people to gather, share their knowledge and help take global digital transformation to the next level.
What will be your theme of participation at GITEX?
Fortinet will be participating at GITEX Global this year focusing on organizations requiring a hybrid approach that converges networking and security to be able to reduce complexity while securing and connecting hybrid and remote users to advanced security with superior performance. Furthermore, our focus will also be on the cybersecurity mesh architecture, an approach that is designed to create a collaborative ecosystem of security tools operating across the digital infrastructure. The primary objective is to place security everywhere it’s needed, anywhere in the network, even as users, devices, and applications multiply and become more mobile.
Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars and offline engagements such as tech talks, demos, keynotes, and so on, alongside GITEX?
Live demonstrations will be hosted at our stand (located in hall 7, stand no A20), which will not only highlight features of the Fortinet Security Fabric but will also highlight how businesses have benefitted on various levels – from productivity to scalability. 4 pods will be available for visitors focusing on Cloud, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), SecOps, and Secure Networking.
How have your regional strategies changed in recent months?
With the ever-growing list of cybersecurity threats and the constant vigilance required to stay ahead of them. Earlier this year, Fortinet introduced three major new offerings designed to support security teams: our new FortiGate 4800F series of hyperscale firewalls set new standards for security, scale, performance, and innovation; the partnership with Comcast Business delivers new SASE and SSE services through Comcast Business Secure Gateways and leveraging Fortinet’s security-driven networking technology; and we introduced FortiCNP, a new cloud-native protection offering that works across Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS cloud platforms.
More recently we introduced FortiAIOps, build on Fortinet’s rich history in AI and ML, which brings visibility, improves the response time to anomalies, and reduces ticket volume to remediate potential network issues for NOC teams. These solutions are united by our continuous commitment to building a broad, integrated and automated platform and technologies designed for the way organizations do business today and to enable their plans for tomorrow.
Any other info you would like to add?
See you in Hall 7, stand no A20!
GITEX
Sophos to Focus on Cybersecurity as a Service (CSaaS) at GITEX 2023

Sophos has announced its participation at GITEX Global 2023, which runs from October 16 to October 20, 2023, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. At the event, Sophos will showcase its advanced cybersecurity solutions and services including Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR).
Sophos will also highlight its new Sophos Incident Response Retainer, which provides organizations with speedy access to Sophos’ industry-first fixed-cost incident response services that include 45 days of 24/7 Managed Detection and Response (MDR). The retainer cuts red tape, allowing Sophos incident responders to quickly respond to active cyberattacks to investigate and commence the remediation process. External vulnerability scanning and critical preparedness guidance are also included in the retainer, enabling organizations to proactively improve their existing security resilience by pinpointing and resolving issues that reduce the likelihood of a breach in the first place.
Additionally, the company will also focus on its complete, integrated CSaaS platform of protection. This provides a single interface into email, cloud, network, and endpoint security that is all backed by artificial intelligence, human threat analysis and open APIs that integrate with third-party tools and other cybersecurity vendors providing proactive protection and peace of mind.
“The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, and there have been significant shifts in both business environments and the methods used in cyberattacks. Organisations are better secured against cyberattacks with Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) as an added layer because of the 24/7 human experts who monitor and react to indicators of intruders before they can launch a full-scale attack such as ransomware,” said Harish Chib, vice president, Middle East and Africa, Sophos. “Sophos has attended GITEX for 14 years, and being the largest technology exhibition in the region, it is an ideal platform for us to showcase our best-in-class security solutions portfolio, meet with regional customers and partners at a single venue, and strengthen our channel network.”
Adversaries are constantly modifying and evolving their toolkits and activities to stay one step ahead of cybersecurity professionals. It is challenging when it comes to targeted, active attacks that are planned and carried out by human attackers. Recently, Sophos released the Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders 2023, which finds that it took on average less than a day—approximately 16 hours—for attackers to reach Active Directory (AD), one of the most critical assets for a company. Active Directory typically manages identity and access to resources across an organization, meaning attackers can use Active Directory to easily escalate their privileges on a system to simply log in and carry out a wide range of malicious activity.
In addition to Chib, Sophos Field CTO John Shier is attending the event to present the findings of the Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders as well as the impact of AI on cybercrime.
Artificial Intelligence
The 43rd Edition of GITEX GLOBAL to Take Place From 16th to 20th October 2023

The surge in international demand has rallied the world’s largest tech and start-up event to scale even higher and bigger in 2023, spearheading a global tech takeover across two Dubai mega venues next month. The 43rd edition of GITEX GLOBAL will take place from 16-20 October 2023, the blockbuster tech showpiece once again reaching full capacity at the Dubai World Trade Centre as it prepares to host more than 6,000 exhibitors, while Expand North Star, the world’s largest start-up event hosted by Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, will kick-off its largest ever edition from 15-18 October 2023 at the new Dubai Harbour venue, featuring 1,800 start-ups from 100-plus countries at the Middle East’s biggest iconic superyacht hub.
GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star will comprise a combined 41 halls spanning 2.7 million sq. ft of exhibition space – a 35 per cent increase over the previous year – converging the best minds and most visionary companies to scrutinise, challenge, define, and empower the digital agendas of the world. GITEX GLOBAL will present the year’s largest AI showcase and summit, its record growth fuelled by the AI innovation wave currently gripping the globe’s imagination, as 3,500 AI-infused exhibitors reveal how this next big technology shift is transforming lives, governments, businesses, and society.

Trixie LohMirmand, Executive Vice President, Events Management, DWTC
The AI boom has also added another layer of complexity to protecting digital assets and critical IP infrastructure, with the elevated GITEX Cyber Valley taking the fight directly to the dark cyber-criminal underworld, gathering leading info-sec brands and global experts at the year’s biggest cyber security showcase. Amplifying this growth, the launch shows GITEX Impact and Future Urbanism Expo promise to be the epicentre of ground-shaking shifts in climate technology while advancing sustainable cities, and co-creating a net zero future ahead of the UN climate change summit, COP28.
“The intense demand for involvement in GITEX from the global tech and start-up community is an acknowledgement of the strong impetus to learn, exchange, debate and challenge the recent developments in the tech sphere,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Executive Vice President of Events Management at DWTC, the organiser of GITEX GLOBAL and Expand North Star. “From AI, and cyber to the mounting interest in clean tech, GITEX converges public and private sector leaders from more than 170 countries to explore the new unknown paradigms of the future digital economy.”

Steven Yi, President, Huawei MIddle East and Central Asia
Expand North Star hosted by the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy will scale to a record size in 2023, featuring 1,800 start-ups start-up exhibitors this year to connect, inspire, and extend engagements in one of the world’s most innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystems. More than 1,000 investors from 70 countries with $1 trillion under management will also converge at the new Dubai Harbour venue, as they look to ramp up the momentum in start-up investment after a year of tepid achievements.
Saeed Al Gergawi, Vice President of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, said, “Expand North Star is set to drive the next era of digital entrepreneurship and inspire the next generation of innovators and thinkers. This landmark event will serve as a strategic catalyst to expand the future of Dubai’s digital economy, creating an unrivalled platform to gather key stakeholders from the global start-up community here in the emirate.”
GITEX GLOBAL 2023 welcomes the biggest tech names delving into the latest trends, risks, challenges, and opportunities that are redefining entire industries, spearheaded by returning titans including Dell Technologies, e&, Google, Huawei, HP, IBM, Microsoft, and Tonomus. Among the debut exhibitors supercharging their international growth strategies and forging new connections are Salesforce, Broadcom, Beyon, and Deloitte.

Saeed Al Gergawi, Vice President of Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy
Steven Yi, President of Huawei Middle East & Central Asia said: “At Huawei, GITEX GLOBAL continues to hold great importance to our business year after year. This year, our theme, ‘Accelerate Intelligence,’ demonstrates our commitment to delve into the transformative power of AI, networks, and cloud technologies. Together, we will explore how these converging forces are reshaping our world and how we can unleash the full capabilities of AI-powered solutions to reshape industries worldwide with cyber security, privacy protection and safeguarding our customer’s digital transformation journey remaining our top priorities.”
More information is available at www.gitex.com and www.expandnorthstar.com
Artificial Intelligence
F5 to Show Off Multi-Cloud Networking and AI Solutions at GITEX 2023

F5 is set to highlight a series of new solutions at GITEX Global 2023. Key developments in the spotlight include new multi-cloud networking (MCN) capabilities that extend application and security services across one or more public clouds, hybrid deployments, native Kubernetes environments, and edge sites.
The solutions represent the next evolutionary step for the F5 Distributed Cloud Services platform, which enables customers to easily integrate network operations, application performance optimization and troubleshooting, and visibility through a single management console.
The new offerings include Distributed Cloud App Connect, which provides an integrated stack approach through a single console to combine comprehensive app networking with full app security, faster provisioning, and ease of use. In addition, Distributed Cloud Network Connect makes it highly secure and simple to deploy connectivity across cloud locations and cloud providers.
The solutions come hot on the heels of F5’s 2023 State of Application Strategy (SOAS) report, which found that 85% of organizations operate distributed application deployments, spanning traditional and modern architectures and multiple hosting environments. “Distributed deployments add operational complexity and cost, obscure visibility, and increase the surface area for potential cyberattacks,” said Mohammed Abukhater, RVP for META at F5. “F5 can now deliver a platform-based approach that is cloud-agnostic and purpose-built to meet the needs of traditional and modern apps—all without increasing complexity or losing granular control and necessary visibility.”
F5 will also showcase its latest security capabilities, including new machine learning enhancements to provide F5’s cloud security portfolio with advanced API endpoint discovery, anomaly detection, telemetry, and behavioural analysis. “F5 customers can now strengthen their security posture with a continuously improving analysis engine and unified policy enforcement. These capabilities enable secure app-to-app communications through validated and monitored APIs, thereby reducing the time security teams spend correcting false positives and accelerating time-to-deployment for new services,” the company said.
Highlights include:
- Enhanced API Security Provides Greater Protection for Modern Apps. F5 delivers API auto-discovery, policy enforcement, and anomaly detection as part of a unified WAAP service, simplifying operations and enforcement through a single console for both app and API protection. Since static signature-based controls are insufficient for protecting API endpoints due to their dynamic, evolving nature, F5 Distributed Cloud API Security utilizes optimized machine learning for automatic API discovery, threat detection, and schema enforcement.
- AI as an Essential Element of App Security. F5 has introduced AI-driven web application firewall (WAF) capabilities, including unique malicious user detection and mitigation capabilities that create a per-user threat score based on behavioural analysis that determines intent. This enables security operations to choose between alerting or automatic blocking to mitigate an attack that would otherwise go undetected by static signatures. All traffic is monitored and proactive defences are applied based on malicious user behaviour that can be correlated across Distributed Cloud WAAP deployments. The new functionality also provides false positive suppression, making it easier to block bad traffic without accidentally blocking legitimate users, and streamlines operations by reducing the time necessary to enable specific app protections.
F5 is expanding its managed service offerings via:
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- Distributed Cloud WAAP Managed Services, enabling F5 customers to access the experience and expertise of the F5 SOC to manage WAF, bot defence, and DDoS protection. Through a shared console, customers have the ability to seamlessly move between a self-service or managed service model as the needs of their apps and approach to app security change.
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- Distributed Cloud Managed Service Portal, enabling F5 service provider partners to build and tailor their own managed service offerings based on the leading security capabilities of F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP. This approach lets partners manage Distributed Cloud WAAP on behalf of their customers without sacrificing visibility, resulting in new revenue sources and value-added services while extending the overall reach of the solution.
“F5 is increasingly standing out for its ability to secure apps in a multi-cloud environment,” said Abukhater. “On the one hand, you have networking players that have multi-cloud capabilities, but they don’t have security. Then you have security players that have capabilities in SaaS and in the cloud, but they are not multi-cloud. To get their security capabilities, you have to put your apps in their walled garden, which is not sufficient either because apps are more and more distributed to ensure the best performance. Digital services that don’t meet the expectations of end-users cost companies millions of dollars in lost sales. F5 was built to solve this problem.”
In other news set to inform the GITEX agenda, F5 NGINX has announced a new subscription option that adds enterprise-level capabilities and support to the hugely popular NGINX Open Source web server, which currently powers over 400 million websites. The Open Source Subscription is a bundle that includes enterprise support to navigate regulatory requirements, enterprise features to address a wide range of traffic management and identity use cases, as well as fleet management for risk reduction via simplified NGINX administration.
“NGINX Open Source is known as the developer’s Swiss army knife,” added Abukhater. “Whether you need a web server, reverse proxy, API gateway, Ingress controller, or cache, NGINX has you covered. However, there was one thing NGINX Open Source users kept telling us was needed: enterprise support. This is why we expect our subscription option to have a big and immediate impact across the world.”
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