GCC firms lack tools to prevent cyber attacks

Manama : Organisations in the Gulf Cooperation Council region do not have the necessary tools to protect themselves against cyber attacks, indicates a survey. 

The study, in which executives and IT professionals from Bahrain and other GCC countries were surveyed, revealed that the executive’s confidence in the ability of their organisations to tackle cyber threats was low.

The Gulf Business Machines (GBM) security study, which polled 7,000 executives from Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, and Kuwait, showed that half of the respondents felt that their organisation was not well equipped to deal with cyber threats. 

About 71 per cent of the executives said they do not expect their organisation to increase its IT budget in 2016. Only 40pc of the respondents said that their organisation has a dedicated IT governance risk and compliance function. 

The GBM security study is an annual study which is now in its fifth edition.

GBM Vice President of Networks, Security and Mobility, Hani Nofal, said, “Security is no longer strictly an IT function, but companies across the region increasingly understand that this is a boardroom and organisational conversation.”

“That said, the survey has revealed that there is still lack of confidence in the tools to predict and prevent cyber-attacks and there is more work to be done across the GCC in terms of security strategy and awareness,” he added.

“While IT security budgets are getting more management focus from 29pc of organisations, our survey has shown that nearly 70pc of enterprises and SME’s don’t outsource their security operations. Organisations need to adopt integrated security architecture with intelligence feeds from internal and external resources to help them to predict and prevent cyber-attacks,” he said. 

GBM Security Practice Manager Niraj Mathur said, “Our focus has been to help customers achieve their objectives, which is more on an end-to-end approach towards security. And build models and frameworks for them, which can help them move up the maturity level as well.”

“There are different levels of maturity, which different clients need to achieve. Right now, the focus is on being as predictive as possible for organisations to help anticipate and prevent attacks. GBM’s security survey aims to do that,” he added.