EDITOR’S QUESTION
Harish Chib
Vice-President for Middle
East & Africa (MEA), Sophos
automated cyber-security capabilities
that are in tandem with today’s threats
and tactics.
The MEA region has reached a
new inflection point in ICT led
transformation, with a new era of digital
platforms and IT led business initiatives
surfacing across verticals. With
maturing 3rd platform deployments
and emergence of several other
technologies, GITEX 2016 shall witness
interesting conversations around
cyber-security, organised cyber crime,
coordinated and synchronised threatmitigation defenses. We also observe
data integrity and privacy concerns
taking center stage at the forthcoming
edition of GITEX.
With the event bringing together the
region’s leading CIOs and IT security
professionals from government, retail,
telecom, oil and gas, manufacturing,
construction, and BFSI verticals – to
name just a few – they shall participate
in mutually benefiting conversations
on how there is a pressing need to
overhaul network and endpoint security
and install a more harmonized and
www.intelligentcio.com
We look forward to sharing an in-depth
examination of the increasingly volatile
threat forces shaping the region’s
prevailing threat landscape, which pose
serious peril to new technology driven
economic realities. And, before MEA
can successfully unfold its ambitious
plans like Smart Cities and intelligent
IoT infrastructure, it needs to be
seen that such bold and advanced
technology infrastructure has a strong
and secure underpinning. This is why
cyber security is now a critical concern
for the region as it strives to protect
citizens, investors, businesses, residents,
and visitors alike. With both businesses
and public sector investing heavily in
ICT, for creating better governance,
easy accessibility to information, and a
sustainable knowledge-based economy,
there is a need to ensure that growing
number of sophisticated cyber-attacks
do not jeopardize MEA’s inspiring ICT
initiatives.
GITEX Technology Week, as the largest
regional ICT platform, will sensitize on
trends that are likely to shape cyber
security and digital transformation in
2016 and beyond. Sophos is eager to
make notable contributions in enabling
a safer cyber-space for MEA with its
vision of synchronised security, ensuring
businesses, government establishments
and netizens of the region remain
resilient and proactive in defeating adept
cyber adversaries.
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