Italy – a country of skilled manufacturers – and UAE – a country of high quality services –  share a strong vision on the future of mobility

Italy has a long and prestigious history in the automotive industry – over € 33 bilion of cars manufactured in Italy are exported abroad every year – and ranks among the first countries with the highest percentage of industrial robots used in this sector (9% of companies vs 7% European average). The challenges of decarbonisation are leading to a technological reconversion of the entire automotive supply chain, destined to become increasingly sustainable, connected and safe. 

A group of Italian and local experts were invited by the Italian Trade Agency (ITA), in cooperation with the Embassy of Italy in the UAE, the Consulate General in Dubai and the Italian Commissioner’s Office of the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, at the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2020 to discuss the future of the mobility and how connected cars are becoming more and more a reality.

The Innovation Talk titled “Connected Cars and Sustaibalbe Mobility” was moderated by Carlo Ferro President Italian Trade Agency, and included as guest speakers Livia Cevolini, CEO Energica Motor Company S.p.A.; Alfonso Fuggetta, Ceo Cefriel; Alberto Litta Modignani, VP Hydrogen Nextchem; Elisa Vannini, Researcher Connected Car & Mobility Observatory of Politecnico di Milano; Andew DeFrancesca, Sales And Business Development Manager eka; Nuzhat Naweedd, Chief Product Offier CAFU.  H.E. Nicola Lener, Ambassador of Italy to the UAE, also attended the event and shard with the public his closing remarks.

All over the world we are at a cross road between digital transformation and environmental transition. Opening the floor, Elisa Vannini, Researcher, Connected Car & Mobility Observatory, Politecnico di Milano, shared what are the maintrends emerging in th automotive industry and their impacts in the business model evolution of the automotive sector.

“It’s all about data valorization” Ms Vannini said.  “We’ll see for sure the developing of a lot of new services, for instance maintenance in preventive and predictive way. There will be a process of servitization of hardware with car makers that are going to be able to build a competitive advantage on the hardware components and unlock extended capabilities and offer the users the possibility to activate extra services.

And then we will have an impact even on affiliated sectors, with the insurance companies, for example, being able to customize their policies on the basis of the data collected through the connected vehicles.”

The concept of cars will completely change and so is the way we deisgn, produce and distribute them according to Alfonso Fuggetta, Ceo Cefriel, an Italian center for digital innovation that creates and rethinks products, services and processes, participates to national and international research, and develops digital skills and culture. Cooperation, agility and a stratup attitude are crucial for the industry to accelerate the process of innovation and to rethik the mobility products.

Talking about the combination of tradition and innovation, Livia Cevolini, CEO Energica Motor Company S.p.A, the first Italian manufacturer of high-performing electric motorcycles, said “We are the perfect example of the combination between past and future. We do believe that that’s the best way to also face the new challenges of the new mobility. Having big roots in strong and mature skills, like we have in the Italian Motor Valley, makes you different compared to the sisters that for example we have in Silicon Valley, where software houses have great, incredible skills in the new challenges of the digitalization and connectivity, but not enough.

We are doing mobility, that means also mechanical engineering; what makes a difference and what is for us the winning choice, is to combine the aggressive push for innovation on digitalization and new mobility with the perfect mechanical engineering that we have in Italy, where we have a big history in the automotive field.”

Commenting about the role of hydrogen in accelerating the energy transition in the mobility sector, Alberto Litta Modignani, VP Hydrogen Nextchem, a company for green chemistry and energy transition, said “Hydrogen is an enabler of the energy transition in many sectors, including mobility. In mobility it can serve as a fuel directly into fuel cells and it can be used also to produce synthetic fuels, combining hydrogen and CO2. This can be done in a green way in areas of the world where there is availability of renewable power and renewable sources, like sun and wind, enabling the production of green hydrogen for the decarbonisation of those sectors.”

The Innovation Talks are a platform to foster the dialogue between Italy and UAE initiated by the Embassy of Italy to the UAE last year with InnovItaly and that will continue after Expo2020. Each talk feature highly-regarded personalities from both Italy and the UAE invited to discuss issues related to Expo 2020 Dubai’s weekly themes and the trade fairs ITA is participating in around the Emirates.

To watch the registration of the Innovation Talks, please visit the official YouTube channel of

Italy Expo 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duU_Ia-CdG4

For latest news and updates, please follow @ITAdubai on Twitter, @ITAdubai on Instagram, ITA – Dubai Office on LinkedIn, and Italian Trade Agency on YouTube.

Organisations across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa will be able to ensure proximity and governance of data through new Azure region

Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW), the Data Cloud company, today announced its increasing presence in the UAE with general availability on the Azure region in Dubai. The new deployment meets increasing regional customer demand for Snowflake’s Data Cloud, enabling local enterprises to maintain proximity to their data, while enabling strict compliance with local data regulations.

“We launched in the region knowing the importance of local data residency for organisations in UAE and ensuring that data held locally is met with the utmost governance protocols,” said Mohamed Zouari, General Manager, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, at Snowflake. “Our Dubai office launch, matched with the latest regional Azure cloud deployment,  signals  our commitment to the region’s data innovators, who can now mobilise their data through  Snowflake’s Data Cloud, to drive both business value and agility.”

Customers using Snowflake’s Data Cloud can discover and securely share data, as well as execute diverse analytic workloads. The platform is a cloud-native powerhouse of business intelligence capabilities, including data warehousing, data lakes, data engineering, data science, data applications, and data sharing. Snowflake uses an innovative, per-second pricing model, enabling customers’ access to almost limitless capacity while only paying for the resources they consume.

Snowflake UAE is focusing on local and global systems integrators that are building data strategies and platforms that leverage the power of its Data Cloud. Chosen to spearhead the strategy, the local team focuses are public sector, finance, retail, telecom, media, gaming, fintech, insurance, healthcare and oil and gas. The Snowflake Middle East team is supported by local channel partners to bring Snowflake’s Data Cloud capabilities to a wider set of organisations across those key industries.

“With Snowflake, every company can finally become a data-driven enterprise,” Zouari said. “Many customers such as banks, telecom providers and governmental organizations are tapping into Snowflake’s Data Cloud to accelerate their digital transformation with data at the very heart of this. Data collaboration across these organisations will help achieve their goals of delivering the best citizen experience in the world.”

Snowflake’s rapidly growing customer base of leading regional enterprises includes Emaar, PropertyFinder, Kitopi, Mondia, and ArabyAds.

New offering in the United Arab Emirates, running on Microsoft Azure, will help meet the country’s growing demand for cloud data protection that complies with local regulations

• Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup sales grew by 55% in the past 12 months, and the new services in the UAE, France and India will support this growth further.
• Customers dealing with strict regulatory, industry, and data requirements in these three areas can now take advantage of innovative technology from Barracuda to store and restore their data in their own region.

As it looks to meet the growing demand for data protection in the Emirates and better serve its Middle East customers, Barracuda Networks, Inc., a trusted partner and leading provider of cloud-first security solutions, today announced that its Cloud-to-Cloud Backup solution will now be delivered to customers in the United Arab Emirates from Microsoft’s local cloud data centres. This makes a total of 10 regions for the solution, and customers’ Office 365 backup data will be stored locally within the country, a key requirement for customers operating in regulated industries, and in complying with local regulations.

In a recent study conducted by Barracuda, organisations disclosed that data protection is both a security and regulatory concern for them. A full 69% of respondents said they are concerned about storage of the data being backed up outside their geography (geo residency), and more than 7 in 10 respondents are concerned about compliance with data privacy requirements.  

With the UAE’s landmark personal data legislation that places new regulations around the processing of personal data for individuals in the UAE coming into effect this year, such concerns around geo-residency will no doubt be amplified for businesses in the country.

“At Barracuda, we continue to invest in our global infrastructure in order to help local organisations get access to protection against emerging threats,” said Chris Ross, SVP International, Barracuda. “As more organisations move to the cloud, they are looking to protect their data, while being able to handle and store data locally. Microsoft advises customers to use a third-party backup and recovery provider, and with these new regions, we will be able to serve our customers while helping them comply with data regulations and policies.”

Barracuda’s latest version of Cloud-to-Cloud Backup delivers a fast search and restore experience for Office 365 data, including Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint, and OneDrive. Compared to traditional backup and recovery solutions, it is a cloud-first solution that provides scale and resiliency, fast performance, and wide global coverage to protect Office 365 data born in the cloud.

Necip Ozyucel, Cloud and Enterprise Business Group Lead, Microsoft UAE added, “We are excited about Barracuda making Cloud-to-Cloud Backup available on the Azure UAE Regions to provide data residency. Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup provides a flexible and scalable backup solution with its cloud native features running on our local datacentre regions in the UAE.”

By: John Maddison, EVP Products & Solutions at Fortinet

Today’s hybrid workers require access to distributed applications deployed in the datacenter, multi-cloud environments, and SaaS locations. Digital acceleration involves adopting and implementing new technologies and practices to improve business agility and employee productivity. But it is also redefining the network edge—especially in today’s Work-from-Anywhere world where users move between on-premises locations, interconnected branch locations, home offices, and temporary locations during travel—thereby expanding the attack surface and exposing the business to new, advanced threats.

Unfortunately, most traditional network architectures were built using disparate and statically deployed point products that provide implicit access to all applications. However, such an approach is no longer effective at providing secure access to critical resources at scale, especially as users, devices, and applications are in constant motion. And the inevitable rerouting of traffic to fixed security points for inspection severely impacts user experience, especially when those tools cannot adequately examine encrypted application, data, and video streams. Far too often, the default response in many organizations has been to bypass security to not impact critical business operations. And the result has been disastrous, with ransomware, phishing, botnet, and other criminal activity now at an all-time high.

What’s needed is a secure Digital Acceleration strategy that ensures that new technologies can be adopted and new, highly dynamic edges can be established without compromising the protection of critical data or the security of users and devices. Zero-trust is based on the principle that every device or user is potentially compromised, and therefore every access request must be authorized and continuously verify. And even then, users and devices can only access those resources required to do their job and nothing more.

This same approach is now being applied to the remote edges of the network, a strategy known as the “Zero Trust Edge.” This new zero-trust approach to securing the expanding edges of today’s networks helps ensure that Security-Driven Networking – the critical convergence of security and networking – is everywhere. This enables security to seamlessly adapt to dynamic changes to the underlying network infrastructure, including connectivity, while providing explicit access to applications based on user identity and context.

Security-Driven Networking from Fortinet

Forrester recently described a solution they have dubbed the “All-In-One Zero Trust Edge” in the Now Tech Report published in December 2021. In that report, they described the future of next-generation networking infrastructure as bringing together networking and security in any combination of cloud, software, and hardware components, securely interweaving users, data, and resources using essential zero-trust principles.

Fortinet is recognized in this report. We believe that’s because we uniquely bring together all components needed to converge networking and security and can then deploy them on premises and in the cloud, including SD-WAN, NGFW and ZTNA. This ensures that we can deliver consistent convergence and zero implicit trust everywhere. We call this Security-Driven Networking.

Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking approach starts with FortiOS-based innovations, including our on-premises SD-WAN and next-generation firewall secure access solutions, which also includes built-in ZTNA. It continues in the cloud with Fortinet’s cloud-based secure web gateway, CASB, and ZTNA solutions for remote users. 

Figure 1: Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking approach to Zero Trust Edge

What is a Zero Trust Edge Solution?

Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking innovations deliver the industry’s most complete Zero Trust Edge solution:

1. SD-WAN: Providing better path and user-experience to applications and services using SD-WAN is foundational for any Zero Trust Edge solution. Fortinet was the first vendor to blend advanced security and connectivity into a unified solution. Our Secure SD-WAN solution securely interconnects all offices to every datacenter, multi-cloud, and SaaS environment. And in addition to reliable connectivity and cloud on-ramp, it includes a full suite of advanced security, enables dynamic segmentation to prevent lateral threat movement for East-West protection, and maintains superior user experience through digital experience monitoring.

2. Hybrid Convergence of Networking and Security: Zero Trust Edge must also support today’s highly dynamic networks. Legacy security solutions struggle to provide consistent policy distribution, orchestration, and enforcement when the underlying network is in constant motion. Integrating security and networking into a unified system is essential for deploying consistent security everywhere, both for on-premises and remote users. Fortinet is the only vendor to deliver networking and security convergence powered by the same operating system (FortiOS) to offer seamless policy distribution and orchestration. We also provide the industry’s highest security performance using our purpose-built security ASICs, enabling the inspection of encrypted traffic, including streaming video, without impacting user experience.

3. Secure Remote Access: Cloud-delivered security that securely connects all remote users is essential to any Zero Trust Edge solution. Comprehensive web security from the cloud must provide multiple layers of defense with AI-driven web filtering, video filtering, DNS filtering, IP Reputation, Anti-botnet service including the ability to address data loss prevention and protect mobile users with in-line CASB integration.

4. ZTNA Everywhere: Finally, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is essential for securing access to the critical applications and resources today’s hybrid workforce demands. However, protecting a hybrid workforce that may be in the office one day, working from home the next, and traveling another requires a ZTNA solution that is available everywhere users or devices are located. Unlike traditional VPN, ZTNA provides explicit access to users per application based on identity and context. Fortinet is the only vendor with a ZTNA solution designed to protect access from any edge, not just a few edges.

Fortinet’s Security-driven Networking Approach to Zero Trust Edge

Fortinet’s innovative approach to Zero Trust Edge converges enterprise-class security and networking everywhere across the network. This unique ability ensures secure access to critical applications and resources, whether users are on-premises or accessing resources through the cloud. Our Security-Driven Networking approach—including our unique combination of exclusive purpose-built ASICs, cloud-delivered security solutions, and integrated networking capabilities—enables superior user experience combined with coordinated threat protection for every network edge.

Zero Trust Edge resolves one of the most enduring challenges facing today’s IT teams: extending enterprise-grade security and granular access control to remote workers. Fortinet’s Security-Driven Networking approach provides a unique solution to overcoming user experience, siloed and disconnected networking/security technologies, and implicit trust challenges that create obstacles for today’s organizations serious about digital acceleration and implementing an effective—and secure—work from anywhere strategy.               

Kodak Alaris has announced a global strategic alliance with digital intelligence company ABBYY. The agreement expands the longtime partnership to now include the integration of Kodak Alaris’ award-winning information capture solutions with ABBYY’s industry-leading low-code/no-code, cloud-based intelligent document processing (IDP) platform, Vantage, to help organizations successfully transform documents into actionable data.

As part of the expanded alliance, Kodak Alaris and ABBYY will offer a technical integration of the Kodak INfuse Smart Connected Scanning Solution and Vantage. Together, Kodak Alaris and ABBYY will drive automation initiatives on a global level and create opportunities for both companies and their partners to solve a variety of document processing challenges for customers.

The INfuse Solution from Kodak Alaris integrates seamlessly with partner applications to create solutions that make it easy to capture data and deliver it directly into business processes. When integrated with intelligent automation platforms, customers achieve an automated end-to end solution for fast, effortless invoice processing. Kodak Alaris will also offer a connector to Vantage and have access to a library of document skills available from the ABBYY Marketplace this year.

The INfuse Scanner quickly digitizes documents of all types, and the data is delivered directly to the ABBYY Vantage platform. ABBYY Vantage provides pre-trained document skills that make it easy for businesses to read and understand the content and context from documents of any type with a high degree of accuracy. Vantage automatically extracts and classifies incoming documents, routes them to the appropriate business processes, and learns from every document to continuously improve straight-through-processing rates.

“We are delighted to partner with ABBYY and look forward to working together to help our joint customers accelerate their automation strategies and increase productivity,” said Don Lofstrom, President & General Manager at Kodak Alaris. “Our global partnerships provide customers and channel partners with access to best-in-class solutions to capture, extract, and process data from a variety of document formats and channels. The combination of Kodak Alaris’ expertise in information capture with ABBYY’s digital intelligence platforms will help customers accelerate their digital transformation and optimize their business processes.”

 “Vantage completely reimagines how Kodak Alaris can solve document processing challenges for its customers by now having a more agile, yet powerful IDP solution that easily integrates into INfuse,” commented Bruce Orcutt, SVP of Product Marketing at ABBYY. “We are pleased that Kodak Alaris’ ecosystem of customers and partners now have a low-code/no-code, easy-to-consume option and to expand our partnership with Kodak Alaris.”

For more information, please visit the Kodak Alaris website at www.alarisworld.com.

By: Jacob Chacko, Regional Director – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

After over a decade of 4G connectivity, leaders in global telecoms are now racing to roll out the fifth generation of broadband cellular technology and meet today’s twin challenges of increased network activity and bandwidth demands. The pressure to upgrade has only become greater due to the pandemic, which shifted the global workforce from the office to the home, and in doing so greatly increased the number of digital touchpoints.

Research conducted by Markets & Markets indicates that the enterprise 5G market is expected to grow from $2.1 billion in 2021 to $10.9 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 31.8%. In the short term, the task at hand for service providers involves enabling IoT communications, fixed wireless access, edge analytics and enhanced mobile broadband. To achieve this, service providers will have to lean on existing technologies. SD-WAN is one of the key technologies that has the potential to aid service providers in their delivery of a higher quality of network experience to meet ever-increasing user expectations.  

5G: Untapped Potential

According to a study conducted by IDC, it is estimated that there will be 51 million IoT devices by 2021. The advent of edge computing will serve to enable this influx of IoT devices. However, as connectivity increases, so too does the amount of data that must be processed, both in real-time and close to the source.

Facilitating huge volumes of data at high speeds is a key function and much promised benefit of 5G. Yet despite providing higher bandwidth to operations, 5G is limited in range. It is expected that 5G networks will be powered by hundreds of thousands of small cells. However, the denser the network of cells, the more difficult they become to manage, operate and maintain, therefore the crux of the issue becomes not only the optimization of these networks, but also the automation.

SD-WAN: The Enabler

Connection and integration across the relevant compute edges is integral to any 5G operation. SD-WAN platforms can help service providers by allowing for automation and aiding in the optimization of traffic and management of 5G cells. Unlike a traditional router-centric WAN architecture, a Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is designed to support applications in on-premises data centres, public or private clouds, and SaaS services, such as Microsoft 365, Dropbox and Workday. At its core, an SD-WAN is a virtual WAN architecture that aims to securely connect users to applications. It achieves this by enabling organisations to leverage a combination of transport services, such as MLPS, LTE, and broadband internet services.

As digital transformation tightens its grip on industry, many enterprises are making use of the cloud and subscribing to software-as-a-service (Saas), rendering the traditional WAN increasingly less fit for purpose. SD-WAN identifies applications and provides intelligent routing, with each class of application receiving the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and security policy enforcement. This quality in particular is vital in the enablement of 5G. Through SD-WAN’s ability to incorporate machine learning, it enables networks to adapt to varying circumstances and automatically route high-bandwidth traffic to 5G cells and the edge.

Ensuring high quality user experience for 5G is paramount, therefore it is vital that service providers evaluate SD-WAN vendors on the following:

• Granular, intelligent application-driven routing. The ability to automatically prioritize traffic based on bandwidth should be a key area of concern. Lower bandwidth traffic should be routed to other available transport such as LTE or broadband, allowing for high-bandwidth traffic like video streaming to be routed through a 5G cell.

• Centralized management. Facilitating the management, maintenance, and operation of edges and 5G cells by intelligently rerouting traffic during provisions and upgrades. When enterprises deploy new applications or when a security policy change is necessary, a business-driven SD-WAN enables these changes to be delivered in minutes, while simultaneously minimizing the opportunity for human error.

• Machine learning. Automation is key. It is vital that any SD-WAN vendor guarantees that their network can adapt to varying conditions in real-time and provide optimal routing to the edges and 5G cells.

• Security integration with business-intent networking. Cybersecurity is an ever-present issue. By directing traffic to the right security services and enabling application-driven security policies enforced from a centralized position, service providers will not have to compromise on either cost or performance.

• Virtual WAN overlays. Quality of service is hugely important, and network resources must be flexible, and optimized. 5G networks depend on network slicing, whereby each slice receives a unique set of resources. By using both technologies in combination, service providers can steer critical traffic to the 5G network where it can be isolated to a particular slice depending on its specific requirements.

As 5G and edge computing adoption increases, so too will the demands of users. Service providers must be ready to provide an ever-present and high performing network. The initial success of 5G deployment will demand a network that has automation and security at the centre of its operation, like the one offered by SD-WAN.

Debuted to the Middle East at LEAP Saudi Arabia, Delinea is focused on removing complexity and defining the boundaries of privileged access

Leveraging its presence at LEAP, Saudi Arabia’s largest-ever technology industry event, to emphasize its commitment to the Middle East region, Delinea today announced its debut as a leading provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions for seamless security. The launch was held at the company’s stand (H3.F40), hosted by the local Middle East Delinea team.

Backed by TPG Capital, Delinea was formed in April 2021 through the merger of established PAM leaders Thycotic and Centrify. Delinea’s new brand identity underscores its significant progress as a combined company and renewed commitment to providing comprehensive, cloud-ready solutions that put privileged access at the center of cybersecurity. For small businesses and global enterprises alike, Delinea delivers the digital freedom that everyone deserves by seamlessly defining the boundaries of access.

As organizations continue their digital transformations, they are faced with increasingly sophisticated environments and more challenging requirements for securing an expanded threatscape. Legacy PAM solutions are not designed for today’s hybrid environments, are too complex, and cannot solve current privilege management challenges.

“At Delinea, we believe the opposite of complex isn’t simple – it’s seamless. Our mission is to provide security that’s invisible to the user, while simultaneously providing IT and security teams with the control they require,” said Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. “With Delinea, the boundaries of access are easily defined to help customers reduce risk, ensure compliance, and streamline security. We are providing privileged access without the excess.”

Delinea’s solutions grant access to an organization’s most critical data, devices, code, and cloud infrastructure using a centralized dashboard. Users get access when and where they need it, for as long as needed to complete the task. Delinea empowers agility, productivity, and security.

“One year ago, in partnership with the Thycotic and Centrify teams, we set out to build a dynamic identity security platform that delivers one of the most comprehensive product suites in the market,” said Tim Millikin, Partner at TPG Capital. “Today’s brand launch marks the next exciting milestone in this journey. Delinea is introducing the next generation of cloud-based privileged access, purpose-built for enterprises operating in today’s hybrid, perimeter-less, and ever-evolving world.”

Whether in the cloud or on-premises, Delinea provides powerful, customizable, and scalable solutions to secure organizations of any size or in any industry, no matter their PAM maturity.

To learn more about Delinea and how we’re defining the boundaries of privileged access, visit delinea.com.

Digital transformation in the post-pandemic era is drawing IT leaders towards new network models that are more agile, adaptable and fit for purpose

In light of the sustained digital transformation needed to navigate the post-COVID world, a new study from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, reveals a rising interest in Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) as technology leaders across Middle East & South Africa (MESA) re-evaluate their current infrastructure and network set up.

Defined in the survey as when a company has over 50% of its network rollout, operations and life cycle management delivered by a third party on a subscription basis, NaaS is a concept that 86% of companies in MESA are currently discussing in some capacity. In fact, it is a topic of frequent discussion in almost 1 in 3 companies (29%).

BUSINESS BENEFITS

When asked about the reasons behind this interest, financial efficiency emerged as one of the main anticipated benefits, with nearly three quarters (69%) of respondents in MESA expecting NaaS to help reduce operational costs, and 58% thinking it could enable a shift from CapEx to OpEx. But flexibility – both in terms of the network and team time – was another primary driver.

Over three quarters (82%) of companies agree that having the flexibility to scale their network based on business needs is key to their interest, and 43% see it as a potential game changer in how they are able to manage activities. Meanwhile, less than half (48%) are looking at NaaS to help them reduce IT staff levels – instead believing it will free up team time for innovation and strategic initiatives (42%).

BARRIERS TO SUCCESS

The appetite for NaaS is evident. Unfortunately, the road towards implementation looks less clear, with the survey identifying a number of key barriers.

On the surface it appears that internal processes may be the issue. Among the top concerns identified by technology leaders in MESA were budget rules and investment cycles (80%), redeploying talent and skills (52%) and finding the budget (52%).

However, a deeper dive into the data reveals a much more fundamental barrier: a lack of overall understanding of NaaS. While 100% of technology leaders across the broader EMEA region said they are familiar with NaaS as a term, only two in five claim to fully understand what it means. Even among the EMEA companies discussing NaaS on frequent basis, only 46% of technology leaders claim full understanding.

And this education gap is also evident in the perception of NaaS’s viability. 7% of technology leaders in MESA currently see NaaS as an established and viable solution. The remainder either consider it to be a concept looking for a market (41%) or in its early beginnings (52%).

“As we emerge from the pandemic, the need for agility and flexibility in network management is greater than ever,” said Morten Illum, Vice President, EMEA at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “We know that NaaS can ensure the critical flexibility needed by businesses as they look to recovery and beyond, as well as solve a range of issues from security and scalability to budget and team constraints. However, in order for businesses to unlock the potential of NaaS, we must focus on bridging the gap between awareness and knowledge.”

Jacob Chacko, Regional Director, Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company said, “As device counts grow, endpoints diversify, and connectivity demands increase, planning a network and keeping up with change can be overwhelming. Enterprises need the flexibility of cloud agility, security, scale, and compliance from their network – which is what NaaS provides.”

To read the full research brief, visit https://www.arubanetworks.com/me/solutions/naas/#naas

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX) a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today announced its participation at LEAP, the global platform for the most disruptive technology professionals, taking place in Riyadh between 1 – 3 February. The company will exhibit under the theme ‘Cloud on Your Terms’ and demonstrate Nutanix’s simple, flexible, and cost-efficient platform – one that offers freedom of choice and enables true hybrid and multicloud computing.

Mohammad Abulhouf, Senior Sales Director KSA, Bahrain & Qatar at Nutanix comments, “Our participation represents Nutanix’s commitment to the Saudi market, with the intention of building on the tremendous success and growth we have experienced in the Kingdom over the past five years. LEAP brings together the world’s greatest minds and leading technology corporations. As an organization that is leading innovation in the cloud computing space, Nutanix sees the event as an important platform to share our vision and strategy for helping regional enterprises leverage the power of the cloud on their own terms.”

“A flexible hybrid multicloud solution enables businesses to select the cloud platform that makes the most sense for their needs, along with choosing from a flexible subscription-based consumption model that delivers resources as needed, eliminating waste. Businesses are able to leverage their existing investments, processes, and skill sets without needing to rework the entire organization. Nutanix’s technology encompasses these concepts. Nutanix is the best suited cloud platform provider for enterprise customers, bringing the public cloud experience down to their operations, and paving the way to hybrid cloud and multi cloud operations. Our agile solutions easily enable maximum flexibility, choice and cost savings. We believe that our technology will play a very important role in the digital transformation initiatives taking place within the government and private sectors in the Kingdom.”

Nutanix will showcase three main solution categories – Cloud (Private or Hybrid), End-User Computing and Databases. These technologies are designed to work holistically together to build a resilient IT infrastructure for organizations. They have security in their DNA, simplicity at their core, and flexibility to ensure the customer always has the power of choice.

Nutanix executives are keen to educate trade attendees about DBaaS (Database-as-a-Service) as a way to modernize data operations and simplify database management. DBaaS solutions offer customers cloud efficiencies and flexibility, but with the operational and security oversight they have grown accustomed to from existing database implementations. The Nutanix solution for databases delivers consumer-grade ease of management and delivery, operational efficiency, agility, and scale to handle even the most demanding workloads on a single cloud-ready software platform.

At the event, trade visitors will learn about Nutanix’s exciting partnership with RedHat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. The collaboration between the two vendors enables customers to more easily build, scale and manage containerized and virtualized cloud-native applications. The alignment between Nutanix and Red Hat is set on a clear strategy of helping regional enterprises bridge the gap between private clouds and public clouds and build the right hybrid cloud model, which is the targeted model for most enterprises in the next five years.

Nutanix will exhibit from Stand Number H3-A20, Hall Number 3 at LEAP, taking place at Riyadh Front Expo Centre in Saudi Arabia.

By Joe Robertson, Director of information security and EMEA CISO at Fortinet

Digitization is transforming how businesses operate. This transition is often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 because it represents the fourth manufacturing revolution. The first industrial revolution was mechanization, the second was mass production and assembly lines using electricity, and the third was the adoption of computers and automation.

Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, with the digital transformation of businesses largely consisting of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and rapid technological innovation. Industrial processes and machines are becoming smarter and more modular, with automation and data exchange that include the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These smart, always-connected devices provide real-time contextual information with low overhead to optimize processes and improve how companies and individuals interact, work, and live.

It’s no wonder McKinsey estimated that investments in IoT technology would grow at a rate of 13.5% throughout 2022. This growth in IoT is contributing to an escalating explosion in production and industrial data. This data is being collected and analyzed to improve productivity, monitor activity, and enhance predictive maintenance. With so much business-critical data passing through IoT and IIoT devices, organizations must take measures to secure their technology.

Why is IIoT Security Important?

Digital has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals, who seek to exploit IoT and IIoT as weak links in the data chain. The increasing volume of structured and unstructured data being generated by these devices, and their oftentimes anomalous behavior spanning across global ecosystems challenges even the best organizations. Further complicating the situation is that many of these devices are wireless (WLAN or 5G) and often have communication channels to their manufacturers for maintenance and troubleshooting purposes, which can make them a potential backdoor into the production network.

Most organizations are not well prepared for IoT and IIoT device vulnerabilities. The ubiquitous interconnectivity among devices, users, and distributed networks presents a substantial challenge for traditional siloed security solutions. Focusing defenses on a single point in the network is becoming increasingly ineffective. The lack of single-view visibility across devices, users, and the entire network creates blind spots that cybercriminals can exploit. According to a study conducted by EY, almost half of enterprises indicate they are concerned about their inability to track security across their IoT and IIoT assets, keep them virus-free, and patch vulnerabilities. This complexity is exacerbated by comingling IIoT devices with wired devices on the same network segments, and can lead to uncertainty as to exactly what is connected where.

IoT and IIoT Security Risks to Be Aware Of

From a security perspective, IoT and IIoT devices present a number of risks. One problem is that most of these devices were not designed with security in mind. Many of them are headless, which means they do not have a traditional operating system or even the memory or processing power required to include security or install a security client. In addition, an alarming number of devices have passwords hard-coded into their firmware. 

The result is that many IoT devices cannot be patched or updated. And even when security can be installed on the device, the underlying installed software is often cobbled together from commonly available code or is untested, which means that most installed security tools can be circumvented by exploiting a wide range of known vulnerabilities. Additionally, most IIoT and IoT devices have limited or no configurability. And when devices are compromised, most IT organizations admit they are unlikely to be able to detect the event before it impacts systems and data.

How to Mitigate IoT and IIoT Security Risks

Some organizations are working to address these issues by promoting authentication, key, and credential management, and other capabilities. But these tools must be tested, integrated with the network architecture, updated, managed, and monitored. So, what is the answer? Simply sticking your head in the sand will not work. IoT and IIoT devices are a vital part of most businesses and they are here to stay. It is important to view IIoT as part of your broader security environment rather than as isolated units. Here are a few additional recommendations for securing this technology:

• Segmentation of the production environment, with all IIoT and wireless devices in segments outside of the SCADA or ICS network. In many cases micro segmentation should be performed to further restrict communications between devices to further isolate and confine them to only authorized communications.
• Network Access Control for accurate information on what is connecting to the network and verification of each device’s security posture before allowing it to connect.
• Security must be redesigned to provide seamless visibility on what is happening across all networks and devices, from IoT to multi-cloud networks.
• Because of the minimal intelligence and security functions included in most IIoT devices, an Intrusion Protection System upstream of these devices should be used to detect attacks on known exploits and to provide “virtual patching” of devices that cannot have software updates applied.
• Security monitoring and management must be done through a single console. Enterprises must be able to see all devices, assess risk levels, segment traffic, and assign policies across the entire network in real-time. This should include both production and IT networks to reduce the risk of attacks on IT resources propagating into the production network, and vice-versa.
• Active protection solutions against unknown threats should be deployed, including sandboxing technology (to determine if files, attachments, or other code is malicious or not), and deception technology, (also known as honey pots), to attract attackers, confirm their presence in the network, and expose them to tools to block and eliminate them.
• Zero trust access can provide simple, automatic secure remote access that verifies who and what is on your network and secures application access no matter where users are located.
• Security solutions should automatically adapt to network changes, anticipate threats, interpret and implement business language commands, and interoperate in a cybersecurity mesh architecture to share threat intelligence, and proactively coordinate responses to threats across all security devices and network ecosystems. 

Going Forward

Unfortunately, IIoT devices are typically not designed with security in mind and finding ways to secure every device on your network is daunting. Because of this, organizations must take immediate action to protect their systems from attack. 

A new generation of tools is helping organizations meet today’s ever-expanding attack surface, delivering not only visibility of the network environment, but also enforcement and dynamic policy control. Whether devices are connecting from inside or outside the network, they can automatically respond to compromised devices or anomalous activity.

Fortinet has developed products, services, and tools that directly meet the operational and regulatory requirements of industrial and manufacturing networks. The expansive Fortinet Security Fabric platform offers a cybersecurity mesh architecture approach that includes centralized management and a unified context-aware security policy that provides complete visibility and granular control over the entire organization.