Abdul Rehman Tariq, the Regional Sales Director for the Middle East at SolarWinds says, our fears regarding AI-based attacks are slowly becoming a reality

Tell us about the cybersecurity trends for 2024.
Besides the evergreen issues like ransomware attacks, which are still a solid “business model,” we see that our fears regarding AI-based attacks are slowly becoming a reality. Previously, organised cybercrime groups used the unlimited resources of cloud providers as a base for their attacks, but those attacks were rather low-tech. Now with the aid of AI, they are getting smarter. In fact, in the marketplaces of the dark web, we see already trained and ready-to-use AI-based frameworks available for purchase. With the progress in AI voice modelling, we can not only expect new songs in the voice of Elvis but also calls from our CEOs and managers asking for access to resources!

What is the theme of your participation at GISEC 2024?
At GISEC, we will emphasize the critical role of Observability in enhancing the cybersecurity posture of organisations. Simply put, you cannot protect against what you cannot see. In today’s sprawling enterprise IT environments, which can span multiple on-prem data centres and public clouds, the potential for visibility gaps is greater than ever before. Security Observability empowers organisations with visibility across these complex environments, enabling them to reduce the mean time needed to detect, alert, and remediate security incidents.

Which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GISEC 2024?
At GISEC, we intend to showcase SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, our comprehensive, integrated, full-stack observability solution built to integrate data from across the IT ecosystem, including networks, servers, applications, databases, and more. This solution has been developed using the SolarWinds Secure by Design principles and a rigorous adherence to a multi-layer security framework.

We will also use GISEC as an opportunity to demonstrate how the integration of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability with SolarWinds Security Event Manager (SEM) and SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM), enables organizations to better understand complexities in their environments while providing real-time visibility to help detect and remediate security issues. These integrations combine security-related events, metrics, and activities with the other data in Hybrid Cloud Observability and allow customers to monitor their security and compliance status on a dedicated security dashboard.

How are you equipped to help companies overcome digital security and privacy challenges?
We have two solid security solutions in our portfolio to help businesses of all sizes deal with access rights and permission management, as well as sorting security-related incidents and properly responding to them. With accesses and permissions, in particular, we see that many organisations still lack proper defences. It’s not rocket science, but all too often something that gets easily overlooked.

Is there a skills gap in the cybersecurity industry? What needs to be done to bridge that gap?
There are obvious gaps when it comes to new-ish technologies. AI is the most popular one, but there are more fields open to attacks. For example, we cannot expect a security analyst to be a Kubernetes expert at the same time. Instead of upskilling, which is a wide stretch in this example, we should take a step back and remind ourselves that everyone is part of the extended security team. Security is a team challenge, and we’re all sitting in the same boat.