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.