Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today announced that for the fifteenth year, HPE (Aruba) has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant in Gartner Inc.’s latest “Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure”, and is positioned furthest to the right in Vision, as compared to all vendors. In addition, in the companion “Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure” report, Aruba has received the highest score in all six use cases – the second time it has scored highest across all use cases.

Read complimentary copies of the Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities reports here:

2020 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure

2020 Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure

Read Aruba’s blog about this year’s reports here:

Aruba and the Gartner Wired and Wireless LAN Infrastructure Magic Quadrant

Gartner evaluates vendors included in the Magic Quadrant based on two primary criteria: completeness of vision and ability to execute. HPE (Aruba) was positioned the furthest in vision of all vendors in the quadrant, which Aruba believes recognizes the company’s continued innovation and ability to anticipate and address customer challenges.

In addition, in the companion piece to the Magic Quadrant, the Gartner Critical Capabilities for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure, Gartner evaluated vendor effectiveness in addressing an organization’s needs in six key use cases: Unified Wired and WLAN Access, WLAN-only Refresh/New Build, Wired-only Refresh/New build, Remote Branch Office with Corporate HQ, Performance Stringent Applications, and Hands-off NetOps. Aruba received the highest scores in all six of these use cases.

“Our ‘Customer First, Customer Last’ culture drives our commitment and focus across the entire Aruba organization from building our products and delivering our services, to helping our customers and partners in the field and supporting them on the back-end,” said Michael Dickman, senior vice president of Product Management at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “The continued recognition by Gartner of HPE (Aruba) is gratifying and we couldn’t be prouder of our clear market leadership via Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform). The networking landscape may have changed over the past 15 years with different vendors coming and going but Aruba’s commitment to customer-driven innovation has kept us on the forefront at every step, becoming the Edge authority that the market turns to time and again. We are grateful to our customers and partners for their continued trust.”

In addition to the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Wired and Wireless LAN Access Infrastructure and Critical Capabilities reports, HPE (Aruba) has also been recognized by Gartner for other aspects of its industry-leading portfolio. In September 2020, just two years after launching its SD-Branch solution, Aruba was recognized as a Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure, and Silver Peak, recently acquired by HPE (Aruba) was positioned as a Leader for the third consecutive year. HPE (Aruba) was also positioned as a Visionary in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Data Center and Cloud Networking.

By: Keerti Melkote, Founder and President of Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

While the world is dealing with the worst health and economic crisis of the past century, there’s been a subtle shift in the public narrative. We’ve moved from the shock of the pandemic to thinking about how to ease back to some sense of normalcy with a phased approach to reopening economies. But if you’re a business owner, how do you prepare for recovery?

One thing is certain: It’s unlikely we’ll all head back to work at the same time. And even when we do, our physical workplaces will look different. How will we reconfigure office buildings to maintain social distancing while ensuring productivity? And what about the schools that educate our children? What will learning look like in our near-future? These are all things we will need to consider as we shift into recovery mode.

At Aruba, we have begun talking to customers and community leaders about these challenges. I wanted to share our thoughts on things to consider as we emerge from this global business disruption.

1. Workforces will continue to work remotely.

Several large companies—including HPE—have said that while businesses begin to ease back to normalcy, they will not require team members to return to the physical office. In a recent article, Antonio Neri, CEO of HPE, said, “Our work-from-home guidance will not be lifted just because government orders are removed; we will only reopen sites when we feel we are in the best position to welcome back team members safely. We will modify our sites to ensure physical distancing can be maintained, and we won’t all return at once. Most importantly, returning to the office will be voluntary.” These words echo sentiments across the global business community, which means that remote work is here to stay—at least for a while.

As the home becomes the primary place where mission-critical work gets done, organizations have to adapt their IT postures to account for this new reality. The edge of the enterprise footprint gets even more distributed giving rise to new concerns around security, visibility and user experience. Should IT provide the tools for work at home? What should those tools be? Is it simply a laptop and a set of cloud/web applications or is it more? Does it include connectivity, security, and application assurance for carrying out mission-critical work? Many Aruba customers have chosen to not only provide the computing environment, but a secure networking environment at home so employees get the same network experience as they do at their workplace. No need to VPN in to work, so to speak. Simply turn on your device and start using it like you naturally do at work. The connectivity and security are taken care of for you just like it is at work. Also, IT gets to have visibility into this remote work environment in order to troubleshoot, maintain and monitor for security compliance.

2. Rise of the automated edge.

As the Edge footprint increases, our ability to reach out and touch it has vastly diminished. All due to COVID-19. Everything at the Edge must be done remotely from an IT standpoint, which means Edge infrastructures at homes, branches, stores, warehouses, or other places will all need to be deployed and managed in a zero-touch manner. This means everything must be instrumented for automation and remote management. Cloud-managed solutions with advanced AIOps capabilities will play a large role in how these distributed environments will be deployed and managed.

3. Healthcare capabilities become part of the business recovery mix.

While the world’s leading researchers race to uncover a vaccine, governments realize that the key to recovery is an increase in COVID-19 testing. The ability to test, track contacts, and quarantine those infected hinges on the ability to test large numbers of the population. As the healthcare community continues to shift with these changing priorities, we will continue to support them with Rapid Response healthcare solutions that allow secure connectivity. Whether they are planning for pop-up testing, a triage tent, or a makeshift hospital in a stadium to prepare for a surge in patients, Aruba will be there to help.

4. Education shifts to a hybrid model.

As we speak to customers in the education space, their challenges start to sound similar to those of enterprise business customers: How do we bring students back to physical locations while maintaining social distancing? How do we engage students when online learning stretches into an extended timeframe? And what are the resulting implications in how educators and planners prepare their education and technology plans to support these new learning models?

Aruba will continue to support our education customers and partners as they navigate these challenging times. We’re here to help them configure their network infrastructure to get the most from the collaboration solutions they choose – whether Teams, Zoom, or something else.

5. Supply chains become a key differentiator.

As the pandemic leaves behind a trail of disruption, everyone will evaluate how they can plan for more resilient supply chains that can withstand future pandemics or similar global disruptions like this one. Aruba has done well in our supply chain execution and it is due to the resiliency we implemented across our supply chain plans.

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced it has been recognized as a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls. This marks the 11th time Fortinet has been recognized in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls for completeness of vision and ability to execute.

John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet said, “We believe Fortinet delivers the broadest and most complete security platform in the industry. We have pioneered the Security-driven Networking approach, integrating security into every element of the network and enabling customers to protect any edge, at any scale. Fortinet has been named a Leader in this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewall. Fortinet also recently announced its placement as a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure. We credit our continued successes to our ongoing commitment to innovation, unique and flexible security platform, and approach to securing the entire attack surface – whether on-prem or in the cloud.”

Fortinet’s FortiGate Next-generation Firewalls (NGFWs) are an integral component of Fortinet’s Security Fabric platform, which provides broad visibility and protection across the entire attack surface. Fortinet FortiGate NGFWs protect any edge and at any scale because they are powered by purpose-built Security Processing Units (SPUs) resulting in the industry’s highest Security Compute Rating. Fortinet continues to drive innovation with its Secure SD-WAN offering as well, with advanced routing and industry’s most flexible security options via an integrated NGFW or SASE-based cloud-delivered security. 

Fortinet believes its placement in the Leaders quadrant is largely due to the company’s ongoing commitment to offer a Security-driven Networking approach, which integrates security into every element of the network and enables customers to:

• Manage operational and security risks for better business continuity: Digital transformation offers tremendous opportunities for businesses to create value and realize efficiencies. However, it also creates new security risks, such as expanding the attack surface for would-be cyber adversaries. With Fortinet NGFWs, customers can achieve full visibility into their networks, applications, and potential threats. Fortinet offers the industry’s highest Security Compute Rating through the power of the company’s purpose-built Secure ProcessingUnits (SPUs – e.g. NP7) to deliver optimal user experience at any scale.  
• Reduce Cost and Complexity: As the digital attack surface expands, security teams must also expand their defense capabilities. Fortinet NGFWs allow customers to build defense in depth through segmentation, dynamic trust, and advanced security inspection to keep operations running. FortiGate NGFWs protect business applications with AI-powered and ML-powered FortiGuard services, eliminating the need of point products and resulting in optimal total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Improve Operational Efficiencies: A single-pane-of-glass management enabled by Fabric Management Center provides a complete and consolidated view across a variety of network edges, on-prem or in the cloud. Fabric Management Center provides automation, and orchestration for the Security Fabric that extends to 400+ ecosystem integrations. This simplifies enterprise-wide workflows across FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and Ecosystem Partners.

Building off the power of Security-driven Networking and our industry-leading FortiGate NGFWs, Fortinet also offers industry’s most flexible and hyperscale security solutions to meet escalating and often unpredictable capacity needs that can quickly outpace an organization’s security solution performance capabilities.

In addition to being recognized as a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls, Fortinet was named a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Network Firewalls. Fortinet believes that this additional customer validation further highlights that Fortinet’s simple, secure, and scalable platform approach resonates with customers across all industries.

Veeam embraces new Kubernetes technologies with latest acquisition, reports significant growth in subscription products, and continues market-leading growth

Veeam® Software, the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management™, today announced another quarter of double-digit growth with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) increase of 21 percent year-over-year (YoY) for Q3’20. Now with 400,000+ customers worldwide, Veeam is fueling its growth by continuing to take share in the core datacenter backup and recovery market while also embracing new solutions to support organizations’ cloud data protection needs. Veeam’s fastest growing product, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365, continues incredibly strong growth with 85 percent YoY product growth. Further proof of Veeam’s growth trajectory was displayed in the most recent IDC Semi-Annual Software Tracker for Data Replication & Protection 1H’20[1] which ranked Veeam as No.1 in market share by revenue in EMEA and delivering the fastest revenue growth year-over-year in 1H’20, among the top 5 vendors, other vendors, and overall market average.

“We understand that, besides people, data is the most important asset for businesses, and empowering our customers to protect it is our mission,” said Bill Largent, CEO at Veeam. “Cloud, Cyber Security and Modern Data Protection are the three pillars that form the foundation driving Digital Transformation (DX) and enable organizations to unleash the power of their data to deliver a rich customer experience. Veeam continues to innovate and stay one step ahead – whether it’s cloud or Kubernetes. Our latest acquisition of Kasten is a testament to that. Our last quarter was very strong, and we’re looking forward to a great finish in 2020 as we continue to announce new solutions that will continue to meet the needs of our customers.”

“The continued results from IDC data illustrates Veeam’s strength in EMEA as we continue to be No. 1 in market share by revenue,” said Daniel Fried, General Manager (GM) and Senior Vice President (SVP), EMEA and Worldwide Channels at Veeam. “This also confirms our position as the fastest-growing business in this category in terms of revenue growth in EMEA. We will continue to consolidate our market leadership across EMEA by radically simplifying Cloud Data Management for enterprises, providing world-class technical solutions, skills and expertise to our partners and supporting customers’ business transformation to future-ready architectures.”

With the acquisition of Kasten, the market leader for Kubernetes Backup and Disaster Recovery, Veeam is working to integrate Kasten into its market-leading Cloud Data Management platform for modern data protection and radically simplify data management for enterprises. With Kasten’s K10 Data Management Platform, Veeam is now able to offer enterprise operations teams an easy-to-use, scalable, and secure system for Kubernetes Backup and application mobility with unparalleled operational simplicity.

Veeam recognizes the strategic importance of supporting this environment for our customers, the increasing importance of providing modern data management that is deeply integrated into Kubernetes, and the growth of DevOps to improve quality, increase scalability, and accelerate application delivery while reducing daily management.

“We are in a strong leadership position for virtualized and cloud environments,” said Largent. “And, as we move into our ‘Act II,’ a focus on cloud and containers, I am excited about the future and what we are bringing to our customers and partners to continue to help them protect and reuse their data to gain competitive advantage. Veeam will continue to strengthen an already powerful team with new talent and continued employee promotion from within.” 

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[1] Source: IDC, Semi-Annual Software Tracker, 2020H1; Note: EMEA Data

SonicWall today announced the expansion of its Capture Cloud Platform with the addition of the high-performance NSa 2700 firewall and three new cost-effective TZ firewall options. The company also debuted SonicWall Cloud Edge Secure Access that delivers easy-to-deploy, easy-to-use zero-trust security for organizations operating in a modern work-from-anywhere model.

“As emerging technologies mature, it’s imperative that companies make the necessary investments to ensure they are prepared for what is to come while making it seamless to the operation of their organizations,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “As remote users require more and more devices, the reliance upon IoT continues to rise and extended distributed networks are challenged with evolving security and connectivity measures, we look to provide tailored options to address growing needs.”

Multi-gigabit threat protection, SonicOS 7.0 arrive on NSa line

The new SonicWall NSa 2700 expands multi-gigabit threat performance to enterprises, MSSPs, government agencies, as well as key retail, healthcare and hospitality verticals. It’s also the company’s first mid-level appliance on the new SonicOS 7.0 platform, delivering a modern UX/UI, device views, advanced security control, plus critical networking and management capabilities.

Like the rest of SonicWall’s newest generation of firewall appliances, the NSa 2700 is ready to be managed by SonicWall’s cloud-native Network Security Manager (NSM), giving organizations a single, easy-to-use cloud interface for streamlined management, analytics and reporting.

SonicWall’s new ZTNA offering protects work-from-anywhere environments

Leading a robust Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) offering, SonicWall also debutws its new zero-trust network access (ZTNA) solution. SonicWall Cloud Edge Secure Access enables organizations to control and protect network access to both managed and unmanaged devices based on identity, location and device parameters. The cloud-native solution provides a fast and safe authenticated on-ramp to any cloud and on-premise network using authorize-first, connect-later zero-trust model.

Cloud Edge Secure Access is easy to set up and easy to scale. An IT administrator can configure the zero-trust security solution in as little as 15 minutes; end-users can self-install the client application in just five minutes.

SonicWall Cloud Edge Secure Access joins SonicWall Secure Mobile Access and SSL-VPN technology in providing remote security that meets security standards established prior to responses made prior to ‘the new business normal’ set in motion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

New low-end TZ firewalls give more options for SD-Branch deployments

To secure increasingly relied upon SD-Branch solutions, SonicWall is adding more security choices for SMBs with new cost-effective TZ firewall options. The new TZ270, TZ370 and TZ470 were especially designed for mid-sized organizations and distributed enterprises with SD-WAN locations. 5G- and LTE-ready, the full line of TZ firewalls comes with a convenient USB 3.0 port to quickly and reliably add 5G connectivity.

“The performance of the new TZ firewall is a tremendous increase, which is necessary for DPI-SSL inspection,” said Data-Sec Senior IT Security Solutions Architect Daniel Franz. “It has awesome security features like Capture ATP and unified endpoint integration.”

SonicWall also updated key products with new enterprise and MSSP capabilities. Network Security Manager (NSM) 2.1 adds various options for NSM on-premises deployments to help SOCs run with greater ease and control. SonicWall Capture Client 3.5 endpoint protection helps organizations manage multiple tenants, translating to lower operational costs and faster response times.

By: Jacob Chacko Regional Business Head – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa (MESA) at HPE Aruba

The hype continues to grow for 5G technology, with many carriers promoting it as a way to target the enterprise networking and IoT markets with an end-to-end service that spans indoor and outdoor coverage.

But will 5G be the answer to all decision-makers’ prayers? There is a lot of understandable confusion about the role Wi-Fi will play in the 5G era, and how they might work together. Although carriers are just beginning to deploy 5G networks, customers need to decide whether it is worth hanging around for 5G offerings, or whether it won’t actually deliver what they need.  

Is 5G more secure than Wi-Fi?

There is a misperception that cellular technologies are more secure than Wi-Fi. Although LTE is relatively secure, it’s not perfect. According to researchers at the University of Iowa and Purdue University, LTE is vulnerable to a range of attacks, including data interception and device tracking. 5G improves upon LTE security with multiple authentication methods and better key management. At the same time, Wi-Fi security continues to advance. Of course, Wi-Fi implementations that do not follow best practices, such as those without even basic password protection, are not optimal. Those configured with proper access controls and passwords are highly secure, and with new standards – specifically WPA3 and Enhanced Open – Wi-Fi network security is even better. It’s also important to keep in mind that that enterprises have made enormous investments in security and compliance solutions tailored to their specific needs. With cellular networks, including 5G, enterprises lose the ability to deploy their chosen security and compliance solutions, as well as most visibility into traffic flows. With macro 5G, from a security perspective, you get what you get.

Does 5G have more features than Wi-Fi?

Although everyone is talking about the incredible speed of 5G, you would be hard-pushed to argue that Wi-Fi 6 couldn’t match it int terms of speed, latency, spectral efficiency, connection density (number of devices connected in a given area) and reliability. The 5G standard does add some new capabilities that 4G doesn’t have, such as the ability to network splice, higher connection density and integrated Edge Compute (MEC). However, while these features are new for cellular, they aren’t new in the market. Enterprise networks, including Wi-Fi, have featured high connection density, network virtualisation and edge computing capabilities for decades. When comparing 5G to Wi-Fi 6, the most important functional difference is 5G’s ability to offer macro-area coverage and high-speed mobility. Wi-Fi was not designed to incorporate either of these capabilities. Conversely, Wi-Fi economics are more favorable from both per-square-foot and lifecycle cost perspectives – devices that only need Wi-Fi are cheaper than those that also have LTE, which would also have the added cost of having to manage SIM cards/subscriptions. So, if a customer values macro coverage and high-speed mobility – and is willing to pay the additional cost for them – 5G is a better fit.

Which is more reliable?

Both Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are extremely reliable when deployed correctly. Although macro 5G is deployed using licensed spectrum, which is less subject to interference than unlicensed spectrum, operating on licensed spectrum doesn’t always translate to higher levels of reliability. Numerous enterprise Wi-Fi customers have achieved extremely high levels of reliability and performance in demanding environments, such as large, sophisticated manufacturing plants. Wi-Fi 6 improves reliability even further. Still, for certain applications, it might make sense to segment a specific private network on either a licensed spectrum, or a different band of unlicensed spectrum (for example, CBRS).

The reality is that Wi-Fi and 5G are both evolving to better serve end users, and both markets will grow to address the macro trend of connecting devices and analysing the data generated by these devices. 5G will serve applications requiring high-speed mobility and macro coverage, while Wi-Fi 6 will continue to prove its value as a reliable, secure and cost-effective access technology for most enterprise applications, as it does today.

BlueTech Holding Ltd., part of Midis Group and providing end-to-end technology advisory solutions for business partners across the Levant, Gulf and Africa, today signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Autodesk for North, West and Central Africa. BlueTech will be responsible for developing, creating and enabling the right partner ecosystem for Autodesk that can design, promote, sell, implement and deploy successful digital transformation solutions for end customers.

Speaking about the agreement, Mr. Toni Azzi, General Manager at BlueTech Holding Ltd. comments, “Autodesk is a global leader in design and make software for architecture, engineering, construction, media and entertainment, and manufacturing industries. We believe that there is huge potential for the company’s solutions in the African market as enterprises in the region evolve towards complete digitization.”

“BlueTech has been a valued IBM and Lenovo Distributor for more than twenty years. Adding Autodesk will further strengthen our portfolio and solution offering and is in line with our vision ‘to be the preferred strategic partner in MEA, by delivering innovative solutions that enable and support the digital transformation agenda of regional enterprises’.”

BlueTech will have an active engagement with Autodesk to ensure alignment on the go-to-market strategy. The distributor and vendor will work closely together to develop and enable the regional channel community. Partner recruitment events will be held frequently such as partner summits, roadshows, roundtables and bootcamps, as well as partner enablement and technical training workshops. Training will also be provided to end-customers to help them derive maximum benefit from the implementations.

“With rapid urbanization, a rising middle class, economic growth and increased government investments, we are witnessing a growth in the construction, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in Africa. Technology adoption can play a critical role in driving this growth, and we are excited about working with BlueTech to bring these best-in-class solutions to Africa. As we aim to expand into new markets and new territories in Africa, it is critical to have a strong distribution framework that enhances the operational efficiencies across the supply chain and maximizes business outcomes. The addition of BlueTech to our existing VAD family is a significant step in this direction,” explains Louay Dahmash, Director Field Sales for EMEA Emerging at Autodesk.

Over the last several decades, Autodesk has driven innovation in every industry its software touches. Below are some of the areas that the company is revolutionizing through its market leading technology:

• Building Information Modelling (BIM) – BIM is an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage buildings and infrastructure. Autodesk is helping AEC professionals move towards more collaborative, automated and successful ways of working.
• Construction – Autodesk’s vision for the construction industry is based on how cloud-based, collaborative technology can drive the era of connected construction. Autodesk Construction Cloud portfolio combines next-generation technology, a robust network of professionals and firms, and powerful predictive analytics to help the business thrive across all phases of construction.
• Generative Design for D&M and for AEC – Generative design is a form of artificial intelligence that leverages the power of the cloud to create better outcomes for products, buildings, infrastructure, systems and experiences. It utilizes algorithms, machine learning and computational geometry to quickly explore multiple solutions to a design problem. Generative design yields a wide range of alternatives that are optimized and validated by satisfying the various criteria a design must meet while accelerating the entire design-to-make process. The recent expansion of Autodesk Revit that is now including generative design technology, allows users to explore, optimize and evaluate data-driven design alternatives based on project goals, constraints and inputs.

“For more than 25 years, Autodesk resellers have been delivering the right solutions, software, and services to meet business needs. They understand unique business and industry needs. We are pleased to bring BlueTech as our new distributor in Africa. With over twenty-two years of experience in solution selling and technology advisory, we believe that BlueTech, through its vast channel network, robust logistical engine, and its team of experts, will drive customer success in our key industries in the region to new levels,” concludes Simon Bromfield, Africa Territory Sales Manager at Autodesk.

By: Ehab Halablab, Regional Sales Director – Middle East at A10 Networks

The financial services sector is experiencing significant commercial disruption coupled with rapid innovation as established institutions strive to become more agile and meet evolving customer demand. As a result, financial services organisations are undergoing rapid digital transformation to meet changing customer needs and preferences, and to compete with a new generation of digital-native competitors. Hybrid cloud environments play a key role in this strategy, allowing greater speed, flexibility, and visibility over application delivery than on-premises data centres while also reducing costs.

But the move to hybrid cloud introduces new challenges as well. So, as financial services organisations plot their strategy for transformation, firms must make critical technical decisions about the clouds and form factors best suited to host their hybrid environment. They also need to consider how they will secure web applications against evolving threats such as ransomware, data theft, and DDoS attacks through measures such as DDoS protection and using a Zero Trust model. At the same time, they must also maintain regulatory compliance, governance, and auditability across complex, fast-evolving infrastructures.

To understand more about these challenges, we recently conducted a survey with Gatepoint Research involving senior decision-makers to gain insight into the current state of financial services technology and the future direction for organisations in this sector. Here are some of the key findings:

Today’s Financial Services Technology Landscape

Although financial services businesses are making a steady move to the cloud for application delivery, on-premises data centres continue to play an important role.

While adoption of public cloud infrastructure is strong, with almost half of those surveyed hosting applications primarily in the cloud, most respondents (58 percent) continue to rely primarily on their private on-premises data centre for application delivery. 35 percent of organisations described their environment as a hybrid cloud, though with an emphasis on their own private data centre. This shows that even as transformation continues, the traditional data centre remains prominent in the technology strategy of financial services organisations.

That said, the balance between on-premises and cloud infrastructure may well shift soon. When respondents were asked about their plans for the coming year, 57 percent of decision-makers reported that they intend to move more applications to the cloud.

Ransomware and PII Lead Security Concerns

Today, financial services organisations face a broad spectrum of security threats, including many being targeted at sensitive customer data. The survey highlighted that organisations’ biggest security concerns or consequences were ransomware (57 percent); personally identifiable information (PII) data theft (55 percent); and phishing or fake sites (49 percent).

While threats to customers and their data are seen as the highest risk, dangers to the company’s brand image and reputation were not far behind. 38 percent of leaders cited concerns about hacking and cyber defacement, tied with brand damage and loss of confidence. Nearly as many (37 percent) were concerned about DDoS attacks, which can undermine a firm’s perception among customers through impaired service quality and customer experience. Meanwhile, insider attacks remain an issue, named by 28 percent of respondents, if not quite at the same level as most external threats.

To address the changing security landscape, many organisations have started initiatives around the Zero Trust model, in which traditional concepts of secured zones, perimeters, and network segments are updated with a new understanding that a threat can come from anywhere or anyone inside or outside the organisation. As of June 2020, 41 percent of respondents had already established a timeline for their Zero Trust model initiative with 15 percent having projects currently underway. Still, nearly two-thirds have no current plans or initiatives around the Zero Trust model.

Moving to Improve Flexibility, Agility, Scalability and Security

Technologies and strategies planned for the coming year reflect a key focus on the competitive requirements of fast-paced digital markets. The top-two initiatives included moving from hardware appliances to more flexible software form factors and deploying hybrid cloud automation, management, and analytics to increase operational efficiency.

With DDoS attacks a prime concern, 29 percent of respondents planned to deploy or replace an existing web application firewall (WAF) or DDoS protection solution. Surprisingly, even several years after the introduction of modern Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) and Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) encryption standards for enhanced security, 29 percent of organisations are only now working to upgrade their Transport Layer Security (TLS) capabilities to support these technologies.

Even as cloud adoption continues to be strong, five percent of decision makers intend to repatriate applications from private cloud environments to their private data centre. While not a high number, this is not entirely insignificant. Given the diversity of form factors, architectures, and deployment methods to choose from, it is important to make sure that the approach fits the organisation’s needs before proceeding.

Addressing the Requirements of Hybrid Cloud and Rising Demand

Moving forward, decision-makers view capabilities related to risk as especially important for their financial platforms. When it comes to the most important capabilities for financial platforms running in hybrid cloud environments, regulatory compliance, comprehensive application security and redundancy/disaster recovery are top must-haves.

In addition to the importance placed on redundancy/disaster recovery, many respondents (43 percent) named centralised management and analytics as important capabilities. Along with elastic scale for variable/seasonal demands (25 percent), this shows a recognition of the requirements to provide effective service through redundancy, scalability, and a sound infrastructure.

Compared with risk-related and operational priorities, cost saw considerably less emphasis in the survey. While 28 percent of respondents placed importance on automation for operational efficiency and reduced costs, just 18 percent prioritised flexible licensing and pricing.

Desired Benefits from New Technology Investments

As they plan new technology investments, decision-makers are motivated foremost by risk reduction—far outpacing business factors such as revenue, customer experience, and competitive advantage.

By a large majority, security was the most likely benefit to spur funding for new technology. Operational considerations followed, including operational improvements (65 percent) and cost savings (63 percent). Regulatory compliance, emphasised earlier in the survey as a priority for a hybrid cloud requirement, was not necessarily top-of-mind in the technology funding stage—but still of high importance (57 percent). Revenue generation was named as a highly important benefit by only 35 percent, followed by customer satisfaction at 32 percent. Even in an industry undergoing rapid digital transformation, just 32 percent of decision-makers cited business advantage from new technology as a prime factor—and only 17 percent were moved by the ability to accelerate development speed.

The results of the survey offer a snapshot of an industry in transition, as decision-makers seek to keep control over security and compliance and maintain operational consistency, as they look to tap into the agility and scalability of the cloud. It is clear that, while security is important for digital transformation initiatives, application delivery and managing multi-cloud environments are of equal importance.  Above all financial services organisations must maintain their good reputation and ensure customer trust. Firms must demonstrate that they are protecting customer assets, providing an ultra-reliable service, working with trustworthy partners and reducing risk to the business.

Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances, FortiGuard Labs said, “2020 demonstrated the ability of cyber adversaries to leverage dramatic changes happening in our daily lives as new opportunites for attacks at an unprecedented scale. Going into 2021 and beyond, we face another significant shift with the rise of new intelligent edges, which is about more than just end-users and devices remotely connecting to the network. Targeting these emerging edges will not only create new attack vectors, but groups of compromised devices could work in concert to target victims at 5G speeds. To get out ahead of this coming reality, all edges must be part of a larger, integrated, and automated security fabric platform that operates across the core network, multi-cloud environments, branch offices, and remote workers.”

The Intelligent Edge Is an Opportunity and a Target

Over the past few years, the traditional network perimeter has been replaced with multiple edge environments, WAN, multi-cloud, data center, remote worker, IoT, and more, each with its unique risks. One of the most significant advantages to cybercriminals in all of this is that while all of these edges are interconnected many organizations have sacrificed centralized visibility and unified control in favor of performance and digital transformation. As a result, cyber adversaries are looking to evolve their attacks by targeting these environments and will look to harness the speed and scale possibilities 5G will enable.

• Trojans Evolve To Target the Edge: While end-users and their home resources are already targets for cybercriminals, sophisticated attackers will use these as a springboard into other things going forward. Corporate network attacks launched from a remote worker’s home network, especially when usage trends are clearly understood, can be carefully coordinated so they do not raise suspicions. Eventually, advanced malware could also discover even more valuable data and trends using new EATs (Edge Access Trojans) and perform invasive activities such as intercept requests off the local network to compromise additional systems or inject additional attack commands.
• Edge-enabled Swarm Attacks: Compromising and leveraging new 5G-enabled devices will open up opportunities for more advanced threats. There is progress being made by cybercriminals toward developing and deploying swarm-based attacks. These attacks leverage hijacked devices divided into subgroups, each with specialized skills. They target networks or devices as an integrated system and share intelligence in real time to refine their attack as it is happening. Swarm technologies require large amounts of processing power to enable individual swarmbots and to efficiently share information in a bot swarm. This enables them to rapidly discover, share, and correlate vulnerabilities, and then shift their attack methods to better exploit what they discover.
• Social Engineering Could Get Smarter: Smart devices or other home-based systems that interact with users, will no longer simply be targets for attacks, but will also be conduits for deeper attacks. Leveraging important contextual information about users including daily routines, habits, or financial information could make social engineering-based attacks more successful. Smarter attacks could lead to much more than turning off security systems, disabling cameras, or hijacking smart appliances, it could enable the ransoming and extortion of additional data or stealth credential attacks.
• Ransoming OT Edges Could Be a New Reality: Ransomware continues to evolve, and as IT systems increasingly converge with operational technology (OT) systems, particularly critical infrastructure, there will be even more data, devices, and unfortunately, lives at risk. Extortion, defamation, and defacement are all tools of the ransomware trade already. Going forward, human lives will be at risk when field devices and sensors at the OT edge, which include critical infrastructures, increasingly become targets of cybercriminals in the field.

Innovations in Computing Performance Will Also Be Targeted

Other types of attacks that target developments in computing performance and innovation in connectivity specifically for cybercriminal gain are also on the horizon. These attacks will enable adversaries to cover new territory and will challenge defenders to get ahead of the cybercriminal curve.

• Advanced Cryptomining: Processing power is important if cybercriminals want to scale future attacks with ML and AI capabilities. Eventually, by compromising edge devices for their processing power, cybercriminals would be able to process massive amounts of data and learn more about how and when edge devices are used. It could also enable cryptomining to be more effective. Infected PCs being hijacked for their compute resources are often identified since CPU usage directly impacts the end-user’s workstation experience. Compromising secondary devices could be much less noticeable.
• Spreading Attacks from Space: The connectivity of satellite systems and overall telecommunications could be an attractive target for cybercriminals. As new communication systems scale and begin to rely more on a network of satellite-based systems, cybercriminals could target this convergence and follow in pursuit. As a result, compromising satellite base stations and then spreading that malware through satellite-based networks could give attackers the ability to potentially target millions of connected users at scale or inflict DDoS attacks that could impede vital communications.
• The Quantum Computing Threat: From a cybersecurity perspective, quantum computing could create a new risk when it eventually is capable of challenging the effectiveness of encryption in the future. The enormous compute power of quantum computers could render some asymmetric encryption algorithms solvable. As a result, organizations will need to prepare to shift to quantum-resistant crypto algorithms by using the principle of crypto agility, to ensure the protection of current and future information. Although the average cybercriminal does not have access to quantum computers, some nation-states will, therefore the eventual threat will be realized if preparations are not made now to counter it by adopting crypto agility.

AI Will Be Critical To Defending Against Future Attacks

As these forward-looking attack trends gradually become reality, it will only be a matter of time before enabling resources are commoditized and available as a darknet service or as part of open-source toolkits. Therefore, it will take a careful combination of technology, people, training, and partnerships to secure against these types of attacks coming from cyber adversaries in the future.

• AI Will Need To Evolve: The evolution of AI is critical for future defense against evolving attacks. AI will need to evolve to the next generation. This will include leveraging local learning nodes powered by ML as part of an integrated system similar to the human nervous system. AI-enhanced technologies that can see, anticipate, and counter attacks will need to become reality in the future because cyberattacks of the future will occur in microseconds. The primary role of humans will be to ensure that security systems have been fed enough intelligence to not only actively counter attacks but actually anticipate attacks so that they can be avoided.
• Partnerships Are Vital for the Future: Organizations cannot be expected to defend against cyber adversaries on their own. They will need to know who to inform in the case of an attack so that the “fingerprints” can be properly shared and law enforcement can do its work. Cybersecurity vendors, threat research organizations, and other industry groups need to partner with each other for information sharing, but also with law enforcement to help dismantle adversarial infrastructures to prevent future attacks. Cybercriminals face no borders online, so the fight against cybercrime needs to go beyond borders as well. Only by working together will we turn the tide against cybercriminals.
• Enabling Blue Teams: Threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), researched by threat intelligence teams, such as threat actor playbooks, can be fed to AI systems to enable the detection of attack patterns. Similarly, as organizations light up heatmaps of currently active threats, intelligent systems will be able to proactively obfuscate network targets and place attractive decoys along attack paths. Eventually, organizations could respond to any counterintelligence efforts before they happen, enabling blue teams to maintain a position of superior control. This sort of training gives security team members the ability to improve their skills while locking down the network.

Mindware, the regional leader in Value Added Distribution, announced today the distribution agreement with HTC. As per the agreement, Mindware will now offer HTC’s complete portfolio of VIVE Enterprise virtual reality (VR) solutions across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

HTC VIVE Enterprise solutions are built around enabling businesses of all sizes to enhance their creativity, accelerate training, strengthen collaboration, and engage their customers. They combine great hardware with versatile software and deliver an exceptional overall experience. Businesses have different requirements – some require best-in-class software and hardware, room-scale tracking, and multiple users in the same environment. Others seek convenience, portability, and a more affordable entry point to VR. HTC’s wide range of products cater to every need.

Nicholas Argyrides, General Manager – Gulf at Mindware comments, “Are you ready for the New Reality? – this is the question we challenge regional enterprises with! Virtual Reality is a trend that is gaining considerable traction in the enterprise space at the moment. It enables powerful ways for employees to communicate, collaborate and learn. With remote working becoming increasingly prevalent in the context of the current pandemic, VR solutions provide a real sense of presence and personalization of interactions, contributing to better business outcomes. Today, VR is able to eliminate traditional physical barriers and provides incredibly immersive experiences. Organizations across different industries are gradually discovering new and interesting use cases and application areas, such as training, industrial design and architecture, scientific visualization, virtual events and entertainment, to name a few.”

“With VR gaining popularity in the MENA region, we believe that there is an enormous amount of potential for HTC’s best-in-class technology that will usher in a new age for the enterprise. We are excited about our newest partnership and look forward to introducing our innovative solutions to the region through our channel ecosystem.”

One of HTC’s innovations, namely the VIVE Focus plus, features an all-in-one VR headset for enterprise designed for quality and portability. With the newly-added dual 6DoF controllers, increased comfort for extended VR sessions, and enhanced optics, VIVE Focus Plus blurs the lines between reality and virtual reality. The VIVE Pro Eye Office creates more immersive virtual simulations with precision eye tracking and is ideal for a wide range of environments and applications, such as training, design, construction, and more. Finally, the VIVE Sync is an all-in-one meeting and collaboration solution for VR, which is in beta stage but currently being used all over the world. It enables clients and co-workers to meet in a virtual setting in the blink of an eye.

HTC and Mindware will work together to develop a strong partner ecosystem based on a specially designed partner program – REED (Recruit, Enable, Engage & Deliver). The objective is to enable skilled and trained partners to consult, design and deliver on enterprise VR requirements. Mindware’s agile logistics operations with several warehousing facilities enable HTC to timely deliver the vendor’s solutions to resellers across the region.

Speaking about the partnership, Graham Wheeler, General Manager, HTC EMEA says, “The freedom and flexibility of VR is limited only by your own imagination, and we are seeing business use grow in a number of ways, from internal collaboration through to working with external partners. VR will continue to revolutionize how we work remotely and change how businesses operate in the future.”

“HTC as a company is always searching for talented partners to collaborate with. Mindware has an expansive reach in Middle East and Africa and shares our ethos and vision. We are confident that we have found the ideal partner to support the business use of VR in the region.”