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Cyber Security

Ensuring Comprehensive Visibility Across All Teams is Key

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1 year ago

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Bilal Baig, Regional Director, Technical, MMEA at Trend Micro, says companies should have a robust incident response plan in place

How is the threat landscape evolving? Are there any emerging threats we should be particularly concerned about?
The threat landscape is constantly evolving, and there are two key aspects to consider. Firstly, traditional cybersecurity threats, such as ransomware and phishing, remain a significant concern. While established security measures are in place to combat these well-known threats, they continue to evolve and adapt, posing an ongoing challenge.

Secondly, the introduction of advanced technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), has led threat actors to leverage these capabilities to enhance their attack tactics, making them more sophisticated. As attacks become more complex, defenders are also employing AI-based defence mechanisms to counteract these advanced threats. This creates a continuous cycle of escalation, where both attackers and defenders leverage new technologies to outpace each other. Hence, the biggest current threat, both regionally and globally, is the extensive use of AI by cybercriminals.

This trend is not limited to phishing but extends across all types of cyber threats, making them more evasive and difficult to detect. From our side, Trend Micro is actively integrating advanced technologies, including AI, to ensure that these sophisticated attacks can be effectively thwarted.

What does “cybersecurity resilience” mean to you?
For us, the key to cybersecurity resilience is to stay one step ahead by conducting predictive analysis of potential security threats and attacks. This involves assessing the risk factors across various environments, whether it’s your mobile device, laptop, servers, or any system using AI. By analysing the risk matrix, we can forecast the likelihood of attacks and take proactive countermeasures. This anticipatory approach embodies cyber resilience, ensuring we can effectively respond to emerging attack surfaces as they arise.

How can organisations balance the need for security with operational efficiency?
A different approach is certainly required. The main global trend we observe, including in the UAE, is consolidation. The market is experiencing numerous mergers and acquisitions, leading to the consolidation of security tools. This means integrating security measures across endpoints, mobile devices, clouds, and other areas.

Previously, each of these security aspects operated in silos, but the focus has now shifted to breaking down these silos and consolidating security tools. This consolidation allows for a more comprehensive and unified view of security, enabling the creation of a real attack matrix and making it easier to identify threats, much like finding a needle in a haystack. This integrated approach is undoubtedly the way forward for organizations seeking to balance security and operational efficiency.

What are some best practices for incident response planning and recovery?
Most organizations focus on proactive measures to address potential threats. When we step in, we emphasize the importance of having a comprehensive incident response plan. This is crucial because a well-planned approach is far more effective than a reactive one where everyone is scrambling in different directions.

Our goal is to ensure clients have a robust incident response plan in place. If a breach occurs, this plan provides a clear, step-by-step process to follow. This includes isolating affected machines, responding to the threat, and containing the situation. This approach not only addresses the technical aspects but also helps manage the organization’s reputation. Therefore, we are committed to supporting our clients in both preventing breaches and effectively managing them if they do occur.

What role do emerging technologies like AI and machine learning play in both cyber threats and defences?
With the advent of emerging technologies like AI, phishing emails have become remarkably sophisticated. The grammar is perfect, and the links are well-defined, making these emails appear completely legitimate. Attackers can even translate these emails into multiple languages, such as Arabic or French, making them more convincing and far-reaching. From the attacker’s perspective, AI provides powerful tools to craft these deceptive messages.

They can use social media data and advanced AI to tailor phishing attempts precisely, increasing their chances of success. On the defender’s side, advanced AI modules are also being deployed. Just like a fingerprint, everyone has a unique writing style, which includes sentence structure, tone, and emotion. AI helps analyze these elements to identify potential threats.

For instance, AI can detect if an email was generated by another AI tool by examining writing style DNA and other nuanced features. Thus, while attackers are leveraging AI to enhance their tactics, defenders are equally using AI to bolster their defences. It’s a continuous battle where both sides are utilizing advanced tools.

What are some of the biggest challenges organizations face when implementing cybersecurity resilience strategies?
The biggest challenge within organizations is the existence of multiple silos. Application teams, cloud teams, network teams, and endpoint teams all operate independently, each focusing only on their specific areas. This lack of integration and visibility can hinder effective decision-making and security management.

Consolidation and breaking down these silos are crucial. Companies are now looking to merge their strategies to ensure comprehensive visibility across all teams. This holistic approach allows for better decision-making not just in cybersecurity but also in related areas such as legal, finance, and procurement.

When procuring a cybersecurity solution, it’s essential to consider how it will support all these departments. For instance, a robust cybersecurity solution should aid the legal team in compliance, assist the finance team in budgeting and cost management, and help the procurement team in selecting the best tools and services. This integrated strategy ensures that all parts of the organization are aligned and can respond effectively to security threats.

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Cloud

SentinelOne Simplifies Secure Cloud Migrations on AWS

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22 hours ago

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June 13, 2025

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SentinelOne today announced its participation in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Workload Migration Program. This initiative supports AWS Partner Network (APN) members with SaaS offerings on AWS to accelerate and streamline workload migrations.

Through the program, SentinelOne will provide AWS customers with accelerated, secure cloud migration support, leveraging modern AI-powered CNAPP capabilities to ensure rapid and protected transitions. With access to AWS funding, technical resources, and go-to-market support, SentinelOne will help organizations reduce migration timelines and costs while maintaining robust security.

SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security delivers real-time visibility and protection throughout the migration journey—whether from on-premises or another cloud—enabling a secure, seamless transition to AWS.

“Through our participation in the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program, SentinelOne is helping customers accelerate secure cloud migrations with end-to-end protection and visibility,” said Ric Smith, President of Product, Technology, and Operations at SentinelOne. “Whether moving from on-prem or another cloud to AWS, organizations can count on us to deliver the security they need throughout their journey—realizing the performance, speed, agility, and cost benefits of the cloud.”

Singularity Cloud Security combines agentless and agent-based protection for deep visibility, continuous posture management, and real-time threat detection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By collaborating with AWS and ecosystem partners, SentinelOne ensures seamless integration into migration projects, helping customers move faster, reduce risk, and scale confidently in the cloud.

Availability: SentinelOne’s solutions are available globally.

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Cyber Security

Beyond Blocklists: How Behavioural Intent Analysis Can Safeguard Middle East Businesses from Rising AI-Driven Bot Threats

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4 days ago

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June 10, 2025

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The Middle East is facing an unprecedented surge in AI-driven bot attacks, with malicious automation now outpacing traditional defenses. Mohammad Ismail, Vice President for EMEA at Cequence Security, warns that legacy tools like IP blocklists and rate limiting are no match for today’s sophisticated threats (more…)

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Cyber Security

Sophos Boosts Firewall with New Protection and Incident Response Features

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4 days ago

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June 10, 2025

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Sophos has announced a significant update to its Sophos Firewall software, introducing enhanced protection and incident response capabilities. This update notably includes Sophos NDR Essential, a new feature now available free of charge to all customers holding an XStream Protection license for Sophos Firewall.

This integration empowers Sophos Firewall with two dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) engines specifically designed to detect both malware communications and those utilizing algorithmically generated domain names. This advanced functionality, derived from the Sophos Network Detection and Response (NDR) probe, aims to identify sophisticated malware communications even if they are previously unknown or not yet indexed. It serves as a powerful complement to the Active Threat Response capabilities already embedded within Sophos firewalls.

Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos

Addressing the technical demands of such advanced detection, Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos, explained the strategic approach, “NDR traffic analysis requires substantial processing power. That’s why we’ve adopted a new approach by deploying an NDR solution in Sophos Cloud to offload the heaviest tasks from the firewall.” This cloud-centric design ensures optimal performance without burdening the firewall’s on-device resources.

Beyond network detection, the update also brings significant improvements to connectivity and user authentication. Sophos Connect now integrates EntraID for Single Sign-On (SSO). This new feature for the VPN client, bundled with Sophos Firewall, is set to enhance both the security and user experience for SSL and IPsec VPN connections. The integration with EntraID (Azure AD) enables users to authenticate and leverage multi-factor authentication for both Sophos Connect and access to the user portal hosted by the firewall, streamlining secure access.

Further VPN-related enhancements include:

  • Improved user interface and usability: Connection types have been renamed for greater clarity, with “site-to-site” now referred to as “policy-based” and tunnel interfaces as “route-based,” making configurations more intuitive.
  • Dynamic validation of the IP address pool: For VPN connections (SSL VPN, IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP), the system now dynamically validates the allocated IP address pool, helping to better resolve potential IP address conflicts.
  • Strict profile enforcement: IPsec profiles now exclude default values to ensure algorithm synchronization, effectively eliminating potential fragmentation of session negotiation packets that could otherwise prevent site-to-site VPN tunnels from being established.
  • Route-based VPN and SD-RED scalability: The system has been optimized to support up to 3,000 simultaneously established tunnels. Specifically, Sophos Firewall solutions can now manage up to 1,000 SD-RED site-to-site tunnels and connect up to 650 concurrent SD-RED devices.

Additional management improvements enhance administrative flexibility and search capabilities:

  • More flexible DHCP Prefix Delegation (IPv6 DHCP-PD): The system now supports a broader range of prefixes, from /48 to /64, improving compatibility with various internet service providers.
  • Router Advertisement (RA) and DHCPv6 server: These features are now enabled by default, simplifying IPv6 network setup.
  • Resizable table columns: The web admin interface continues its adaptation for ultra-wide screens, with many configuration pages now allowing users to resize columns as needed for improved usability.
  • Enhanced object search functionality: The search field within the SD-WAN routing configuration screen now supports more granular criteria, including route name, ID, objects, and object values like IP addresses and domains. Similarly, local ACL rules now also support object name and value searches, extending to content-based searches for more precise results.
  • Default configuration changes: To streamline initial setups, default firewall rules and rule groups previously created during new firewall deployments have been removed. The initial configuration now only includes the default network rule and MTA rules. Furthermore, the default firewall rule group and the default gateway probe for custom gateways are now set to “None” by default.

Sophos continues its commitment to cybersecurity through a “Secure by Design” approach, enhancing the intrinsic security of its firewalls. This methodology involves the containerization of specific features and rigorous integrity checks on critical operating system files using mathematical checksums. Any detected checksum mismatch triggers a potential compromise alert, enabling monitoring teams to proactively identify possible security incidents affecting the firewall OS integrity. This proactive detection allows incident response and development teams to react swiftly to critical security events.

This update is now available for manual download and deployment by customers with any Sophos Firewall equipped with a valid license.

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