NEWS

National Marine Dredging Company has selected Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite to enhance efficiency across various functions throughout its business operations.

By utilising a wide range of applications for finance, supply chain, HR, and customer service, the Group will be able to simplify and integrate critical business processes across verticals, to optimise spending, generate more insightful data, and better support its growing workforce.

With an aim to increase flexibility and standardise business processes on a single platform, NMDC Group chose

Oracle Fusion Applications to replace its highly customised on-premises legacy Oracle business systems through implementing the progressive and innovative Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise

Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Fusion

Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM), Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), and Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX).

“NMDC continually looks to adopt the latest and most transformative technologies available on the market including the internet of things (IoT) and artificial Intelligence, that can truly empower our business and employees,” said Eng. Yasser Zaghloul, Group CEO. “Enhancing and standardising the Group’s business processes with the power of technology will contribute towards increased productivity, greater access to insights, and enhanced customer and employee experience.”

“We continue to implement global practices in an environment where business dynamics change on a daily basis,” said Ahmed Al Dhaheri, CEO of NPCC. “The new Oracle applications suite demonstrates our commitment to ensuring our people have the right tools for success, allowing us to maintain operational excellence.”

By creating a single platform, the Group is ideally positioned to capture growth opportunities in the UAE and in key regional markets, with strong capabilities across the value chain to support future expansion plans.

“Oracle Fusion Applications will enable NMDC Group to benefit from an integrated platform that will improve operational efficiency and optimise business processes as the company consolidates and enters its next phase of growth,” said Rahul Misra, vice president business applications, Gulf and South Africa, Oracle. “With new innovations added quarterly, NMDC Group will also be able better respond to shifting market conditions and capitalise on new business opportunities.”

5.5G, an enhanced version of 5G, is expected to be put into large-scale commercial use by 2025 to further digitalise the economy and society, and speed up green and intelligent transformations, according to an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) expert.

Walid Mathlouthi, Head of the ITU’s Future Network & Spectrum Management Division made the above statement during the 5.5G and Intelligent World 2030 media roundtable at Huawei Win-Win Innovation Week held this week. Mathlouthi said that spectrum will be crucial for future ICT development, especially in mobile communications and 5G to 5.5G evolution. The global industry value chain as a whole is currently concerned about ultrawideband spectrum allocation and all-uplink spectrum usage. It will be important to address these issues through industry-wide collaboration in networks, ecosystems, and services. Increasing spectrum availability will also facilitate robust and sustainable growth of the industry.

“It is important for unified standards to be adopted worldwide,” said Mathlouthi. “Relevant spectrum guidelines will be released at the WRC at the end of 2023.” He predicted that 5.5G will be put into commercial use in 2025.

Wang Qi, Chief Marketing Officer of Huawei 5.5G Wireless Network, agreed with this prediction. He said that we will need wireless technologies that are more capable than 5G within the next 5 to 10 years as more intelligent applications emerge. 5.5G, the next proposed evolution of 5G, has already been defined by its ability to support 100 billion connections and ubiquitous 10 Gbit/s connectivity. This emerging technology will play a vital role in the growth of the digital economy. Wang believes that 10 Gbit/s downlink and millisecond-level latency will help bridge the virtual and physical worlds. He also said that other new 5G-based technologies such as NB-IoT, RedCap, and passive IoT will enable hundreds of billions of connections, and that integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technologies will provide capabilities beyond connectivity. Further exploration of these technologies will be critical in driving innovation in a wider range of application scenarios. “5G will continuously evolve toward 5.5G with enhancements such as 10 times faster connectivity and stronger IoT and sensing capabilities,” Wang concluded.

Sophos has announced Sophos X-Ops, a new crossoperational unit linking SophosLabs, Sophos SecOps and Sophos AI, three established teams of cybersecurity experts at Sophos, to help organisations better defend against constantly changing and increasingly complex cyberattacks. Sophos X-Ops leverages the predictive, real-time, realworld, and deeply researched threat intelligence from each group, which, in turn, collaborate to deliver stronger, more innovative protection, detection and response capabilities.

Sophos is also issuing “OODA: Sophos X-Ops Takes on Burgeoning SQL Server Attacks,” research about increased attacks against unpatched Microsoft SQL servers and how attackers used a fake downloading site and grey-market remote access tools to distribute multiple ransomware families. Sophos X-Ops identified and thwarted the attacks because the Sophos X-Ops teams combined their respective knowledge of the incidents, jointly analyzed them, and took action to quickly contain and neutralize the adversaries.

“Modern cybersecurity is becoming a highly interactive team sport, and as the industry has matured, necessary analysis, engineering and investigative specialisations have emerged. Scalable end-to-end operations now need to include software developers, automation engineers, malware analysts, reverse engineers, cloud infrastructure engineers, incident responders, data engineers and scientists, and numerous other experts, and they need an organisational structure that avoids silos,” said Joe Levy, Chief Technology and Product Officer, Sophos. “We’ve unified three globally recognised and mature teams within Sophos to provide this breadth of critical, subject matter and process expertise. Joined together as Sophos X-Ops, they can leverage the strengths of each other, including analysis of worldwide telemetry from more than 500,000 customers, industryleading threat hunting, response and remediation capabilities, and rigorous artificial intelligence to measurably improve threat detection and response. Attackers are often too organised and too advanced to combat without the unique combined expertise and operational efficiency of a joint task force like Sophos X-Ops.”

Tenable has achieved the Application Security distinction in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Competency for its cloud-native vulnerability management solution. This designation recognises that Tenable has demonstrated and successfully met AWS’s technical and quality requirements for providing customers with a deep level of software expertise in Application Security to help them achieve their cloud security goals.

Achieving the Application Security distinction in the AWS Security Competency differentiates Tenable as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member that provides specialised software designed to help companies – from startups and mid-sized businesses to the largest global organisations– to adopt, develop and deploy security into their AWS environments, increasing their overall security posture on AWS. To receive the designation, APN Partners must possess deep AWS expertise and deliver solutions seamlessly on AWS.

“Tenable is proud to be an APN Partner to achieve the Application Security distinction in the AWS Security Competency,” said Ray Komar, vice president of technology and cloud alliances, Tenable. “Our team is dedicated to helping companies achieve their security goals by combining our vulnerability management expertise with the range of powerful security tools AWS provides.”

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Competency Program to help customers identify AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.

“Tenable.io has unified our vulnerability management program under one tool set,” said Patrick King, Head of IT Operations and Security, Global Payments AU/NZ. “It’s brought together teams across different business units to use a common language around vulnerability posture. The solution is easy to use and streamlines our reporting.”

Managed in the cloud and powered by Nessus technology, Tenable provides comprehensive vulnerability coverage with the ability to predict which security issues to remediate first. It’s a complete end-toend vulnerability management solution.

IBM Security has released the annual global Cost of a Data Breach Report, revealing costlier and higher-impact data breaches than ever before, with the global average cost of a data breach reaching an all-time high of $4.35 million for surveyed organisations. With breach costs increasing nearly 13% over the last two years of the report, the findings suggest these incidents may also be contributing to rising costs of goods and services. In fact, 60% of studied organisations globally raised their product or services prices due to the breach, when the cost of goods is already soaring worldwide amid inflation and supply chain issues.

The perpetuality of cyberattacks is also shedding light on the “haunting effect” data breaches are having on businesses, with the IBM report finding 83% of studied organisations globally have experienced more than one data breach in their lifetime. Another factor rising over time is the after-effects of breaches on these organisations, which linger long after they occur, as nearly 50% of breach costs are incurred more than a year after the breach.

In the Middle East, the costliest breaches are often made by a malicious insider and can reach close to 9.6 million US dollars. This initial attack vector surpasses physical security compromises, stolen credentials, phishing attacks and cloud misconfigurations. The report did however highlight an improvement year-on-year where organisations in the Middle East are identifying and containing data breaches quicker and more effectively.

The 2022 Cost of a Data Breach Report is based on in-depth analysis of real-world data breaches experienced by 550 organisations globally, 31 of which are from the Middle East, between March 2021 and March 2022. The research, which was sponsored and analyzed by IBM Security, was conducted by the Ponemon Institute.

“Businesses need to put their security defenses on the offense and beat attackers to the punch. It’s time to stop the adversary from achieving their objectives and start to minimise the impact of attacks. The more businesses try to perfect their perimeter instead of investing in detection and response, the more breaches can fuel cost of living increases.” said Charles Henderson, Global Head of IBM Security X-Force. “This report shows that the right strategies coupled with the right technologies can help make all the difference when businesses are attacked.”

ABB and Red Hat have announced a global partnership to enable industries using ABB’s process automation and industrial software to scale rapidly and flexibly leveraging Red Hat’s enterprise platforms and application services built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The collection, management, and analysis of industrial plant data is critical to improve the efficiency of operations while addressing safety, security and productivity needs. This is consistent with ABB’s strategy for the evolution of process automation.

The partnership enables virtualization and containerisation of automation software with Red Hat OpenShift to provide advanced flexibility in hardware deployment, optimised according to application needs. It also provides efficient system orchestration, enabling real-time, data-based decision making at the edge and further processing in the cloud.

Red Hat OpenShift, the enterprise Kubernetes platform, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as its foundation, provides ABB with a single consistent application platform, from small single node systems to scaled-out hyperconverged clusters at the industrial edge, which simplifies development and management efforts for ABB’s customers.

Red Hat OpenShift increases the deployment flexibility and scalability of ABB Ability Edgenius, a comprehensive edge platform for industrial software applications, together with ABB Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite, an enterprise-grade platform and applications suite that leverages industrial AI to drive Industry 4.0 digital business outcomes for customers. ABB’s Edgenius and Genix can both be scaled seamlessly and securely across multiple deployments. With this partnership, ABB will have access to capabilities like zero-touch provisioning (remote configuration of networks) which can increase manageability and consistency across plant environments.

Matt Hicks, executive vice president, Products and Technologies, Red Hat, said:“Red Hat is excited to work with ABB to bring operational and information technology closer together to form the industrial edge. Together, we intend to streamline the transition from automated to autonomous operations and address current and future manufacturing needs using open source technologies. As we work to break down barriers between IT and the plant level, we look to drive limitless innovation and mark a paradigm shift in operational technology based on open source.”

Cisco Talos has released its latest quarterly report that examines incident response trends and global cyber threats.

According to the report, during April, May and June 2022, commodity malware outpaced ransomware for the first time in more than a year, comprising 20 percent of the threats observed, followed by ransomware, phishing, business email compromise (BEC) and advanced persistent threats.

This quarter mainly saw an increase in commodity malware threats, widely available for purchase or download. This type of malware is typically not customized and is used by a variety of actors to deliver additional threats in various stages of their operation and/or to deliver additional threats. Cisco Talos also observed ongoing Qakbot activity, which leverages thread hijacking, allowing threat actors to use compromised email accounts to insert malicious replies into the middle of existing email conversations.

Compared to previous years, ransomware made up a smaller portion, comprising 15 percent of all threats, compared with 25 percent last quarter. The drop is attributed to various factors including the closure of several ransomware groups, whether it be of their own volition or the actions of global law enforcement agencies and governments.

The top-targeted industry continues to be telecommunications, following a trend where it was among the top targeted sectors in Q4 2021 and Q1 2022, closely followed by organizations in the education and healthcare sectors.

Other targeted verticals include financial services, local government, food services, retail, automotive, information technology, production and manufacturing. Meanwhile, the United States continues to be the top targeted country followed by Europe, Asia, North America and Middle East.

Commenting on the report’s findings, Fady Younes, Cybersecurity Director, EMEA Service Providers and MEA said: “Organizations across countries of the Middle East and Africa hold a huge amount of sensitive data that is prone to cyber threats and needs to be secured. With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated, the demand for comprehensive cybersecurity solutions is increasing.” He added: “Cisco is uniquely positioned to support governments and businesses of all sizes and across industries in our region, addressing the cyber security challenges they are facing, and helping them increase their security resilience.”

Logitech is powering up its video collaboration (VC) devices through the latest CollabOS 1.6 and firmware updates, bringing helpful enhancements like expanded mic and camera support, camera speed controls, Local Network Access (LAN) configuration, and autorotate features to facilitate the hybrid meeting experience. The updates will make hybrid meetings easier to deploy, manage, and join.

CollabOS is the unifying operating system which runs on select Logitech video collaboration devices. With CollabOS, these devices work seamlessly together, continuously improve, and are easier than ever to deploy and manage and help deliver high-quality, equitable meeting experiences for everyone.

The UAE is accelerating its digital transformation efforts, and according to Loubna Imenchal, Head of Video Collaboration at Logitech AMECA, organisations using Logitech solutions will notice that the CollabOS 1.6 update adds more collaborative value to their in-person, hybrid and virtual meetings.” This update will make it easier to deploy new features and create a more seamless atmosphere to leverage oneclick content sharing and collaboration.”

Ensuring equitability in hybrid meetings is important in today’s business environment and this means that every participant should feel and be equally seen and equally heard no matter if they are in the office or working at home. Having responsive and adaptable video is a crucial fixture in today’s meeting rooms, and Logitech’s CollabOS 1.6 update helps achieve this through expanded Mic Pod support, external camera support, and adjustable camera speed controls.

Sectona Technologies has welcomed Mustafa Jamal Sofi as its Regional Sales Director of the Middle East & Africa to lead the overall GTM. Mustafa joins Sectona with nearly a decade of expertise in cybersecurity sales & distribution, working with Fortune 500 across MEA & APAC regions.

The appointment of Mustafa comes as the company opens its new office in Dubai, UAE, and is looking to accelerate its growth in the region. Mustafa’s expertise in niche cybersecurity solutions and his track record of delivering value to customers and channel partners will help Sectona PAM in phenomenal growth and outreach.

“I am excited to join Sectona, a company I’ve been following very closely since their founding days. The product is very innovative and the young team’s plans for the region as well as Africa and Europe ensured that I leapt at the opportunity when it was presented to me. As the leading provider of privileged account security and dynamic employee remote access management for over 250 enterpriselevel customers, we’re committed to growing and strengthening our market position. I look forward to a long and fruitful journey here!” said Mustafa. Previously Mustafa served as the BU Head for one of the leading Cybersecurity Distributors in the MEA region.

Nitish Kumar, the CEO of Sectona, said, “The proliferation of identities and anywhere access are increasing the need for organisations to secure privileged accounts from threat actors. It is high time to make the world a cyber secure place, and I am glad to have Mustafa join us in our mission to provide enterprises with robust PAM.”

Cohesity has announced the appointment of Sanjay Poonen as CEO and President. He will also join the Cohesity Board of Directors. Poonen was formerly Chief Operating Officer (COO) of VMware and President of SAP. Mohit Aron, who has been CEO since founding the company in 2013, will accelerate Cohesity’s product innovation and roadmap as Founder and Chief Technology and Product Officer. Aron will continue to lead the company’s research and development (R&D), support and services, as well as the Office of the CTO. He will remain on the Cohesity Board of Directors.

“Cohesity sits at the intersection of three of the highest priority business issues today – cyber security, cloud, and data management – and is poised to become a major powerhouse with industry analyst firms naming the company a leader and one of the fastest growing in its category,” said Sanjay Poonen, CEO and President, Cohesity. “In my due diligence with customers, I’ve found that Cohesity has the best technology in its category and protects data for many of the biggest brands in the Fortune 500. Above all, Mohit has built an incredible team across the organisation that is committed to driving innovation while putting customers first. I look forward to leading this talented organisation and driving even further success in strong partnership with Mohit and all Cohesians.”

In his most recent role as COO of VMware, Poonen oversaw sales, marketing, services, and alliances and played a key role in doubling revenues from approximately $6B to $12B. Poonen also played a vital role in architecting multiple successful cloud partnerships, including AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle. He led the company’s security and end-user computing businesses, including the acquisition of AirWatch and Carbon Black. Prior to VMware, Poonen served as President of SAP where he led SAP’s Applications, Industries, and Platform teams, serving in engineering and sales roles that helped double SAP revenues from approximately $10B to $20B.

Kissflow has unveiled its vision for seamless work management across all facets of the modern enterprise. The company has consolidated solutions across its portfolio – including its low-code, no-code, process automation, collaboration, and analytics offerings – to deliver a unified low-code/no-code work platform that enables enterprises to fast-track digital transformation.

Outlining how the current, fragmented approach to work software hinders the success of digital initiatives, Suresh

Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow said,

“The multitude of siloed work management tools has created a complex, disjointed digital ecosystem. A holistic digital transformation is impossible without an inclusive approach where business experts and IT teams can co-create.”

“With our new unified platform, we’re enabling Middle East enterprises to move away from this disconnected, tactical approach to productivity, and instead embrace a radically simple and effective IT paradigm that delivers an inclusive and unified experience to all enterprise users,” Sambandam added.

Kissflow’s new work platform consolidates capabilities for app development, process management, task management, case management, data management, integrations, analytics, and collaboration. It makes these easily consumable to end-users, teams, team managers, process experts, citizen developers and IT developers through the intuitive low-code, no-code model. This aligns with the company’s mission of democratising app development in the region to address the present and intensifying shortage of technical talent.

“Even as IT workloads skyrocket, the needs of over 500 million business users is being served by a pool of just 26 million developers. It is a concerning disparity that threatens to cripple digital transformation initiatives,” said Sambandam. “Low-code/ no-code is the obvious solution as it enables business users to take control of their digital needs while IT leaders can continue providing a secure and scalable platform for digital growth. With 500 million business users becoming citizen developers, this will be the gamechanger that will drive the future of work.”