Alain Penel, the Vice President for Middle East, Turkey and CIS at Fortinet, says cybercriminals are increasingly leveraging Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS)

How did the industry and your company fare in 2024, and what were the key highlights?
2024 was another pivotal year for cybersecurity as the threat landscape became even more sophisticated, with AI being used more extensively in attacks. Cybercriminals also increasingly leveraged Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS), enhancing their capabilities with automated hacking tools and phishing kits.

Fortinet responded by doubling down on AI-driven threat detection and automated response systems, helping organizations mitigate threats in real time. Collaborations with governments and private organizations further underscored our leadership in addressing the convergence of physical and digital threats.

What opportunities do you foresee for 2025, and how do you plan to leverage them?
We see the opportunity to work even closer as an industry to combat cybercrime. We can do this by strengthening public-private partnerships across the board. As attackers continually evolve their strategies, the cybersecurity community must do the same in response.

Pursuing global collaborations, creating public-private partnerships, and developing frameworks to combat cyber threats are all vital to enhancing our collective resilience. Many related efforts, like the World Economic Forum Cybercrime Atlas initiative, of which Fortinet is a founding member, are already underway, and we anticipate that more collaborative initiatives will emerge to meaningfully disrupt cybercrime in 2025.

What major challenges did you encounter in 2024, and how did you address them?
One of the major challenges of 2024 was the increased specialization of threat actors and the convergence of physical and cyber threats. We addressed these issues by enhancing our AI-driven anti-adversary framework and providing businesses with tools for better reconnaissance and weaponization prevention. Additionally, the reliance on multi-cloud environments posed new vulnerabilities, which we helped address by advancing hybrid cloud security solutions and working with organizations to build enterprise-wide cybersecurity cultures.

Which emerging technologies do you believe will be in high demand in 2025, and why?
While Fortinet has been leveraging AI for over a decade, 2025 presents even more opportunities for companies to harness AI and behavioural analytics for real-time cybersecurity, especially as hybrid and multi-cloud environments continue to expand. Post-quantum cryptography will also rise in importance as organizations prepare for the disruption of traditional encryption methods by quantum computing.

What will be your primary focus areas and strategic priorities for 2025?
Our investments in the fast-growing markets of Unified SASE and Security Operations generated strong results this year, and we continued to gain market share in Secure Networking. With our expertise in converging networking and security, a proven track record of innovation, and seamless product integration within our FortiOS and FortiASIC, we are well-positioned to lead in these three core growth areas and drive sustained growth. Additionally, we’ll continue to expand partnerships with governments and industry leaders to strengthen global security frameworks, address the growing convergence of digital and physical threats, and close the global skills gap.