What visibility-first security strategy means for ME firms

dubai — Organisations across the Middle East need to implement a visibility-first approach, when it comes to security, experts noted.

On the sidelines of the IDC CISO roundtable, Hamed Diab, director of Metca–ForeScout, said that geopolitical tensions are driving demand for comprehensive visibility across the region’s hyperconnected enterprises.

“Government departments and major corporations face unprecedented risks of being hacked and hit with malware,” he said. “You cannot secure what you cannot see.”

Today, more than 166 IoT projects are running in Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone. As new smart cities are built, and new technology installed, massive networks and datacenters will be created to support them — and the immense security challenges they present may be overlooked.

In the last year, organisations have had to keep pace with the rapid growth of devices while managing security hygiene and compliance. Companies are discovering up to 60 per cent more devices on their network than previously known with an increasing majority that cannot support management and security agents. Threat actors have also begun to exploit the expanded attack surface

you cannot secure what you cannot see Hamed Diab, Director of Metca–ForeScout

represented by non-traditional IoT and operational technology devices as entry points into the enterprise. ForeScout Technologies has also announced its expansion in the Middle East.

“The industry has a massive visibility problem that is only growing as the number of corporate unmanaged IP-connected devices continues to explode,” Diab said. “When it comes to the extended enterprise, it just takes one rogue or invisible device to take down an entire network. [A] platform [should] a visibility-first approach to secure the campus to cloud to critical infrastructure and helps enterprises light up all of their devices regardless of if they have 100 or 1 million.”