Nozomi Networks’ Bachir Moussa, Regional Director MEAR, spoke with CPI’s Nitya Ravi about his organisation’s involvement in GISEC 2022 and the products they plan to showcase to aid businesses in this post-pandemic landscape.
What products and solutions are Nozomi Networks showcasing this GISEC 2022?
OT and IoT Security is our forte and so this GISEC we will be showing how to gain real time visibility in a passive manner into your OT and IoT environments, how to build on that visibility to leverage cybersecurity that helps protect and detect cyber threats early on before they impact the environment. And management of your OT and IoT environment from a security perspective whether it is on premise or cloud with our vantage platform.
Post pandemic, what do you think are the pressing security challenges faced by companies?
Post pandemic, we know that many people do not prefer to go back to working onsite and so remote access continues to be a very important part of day-to-day work. This is where we step in for remote access to Industrial network. This is very critical because if done well, it saves a lot of time and allows organisations to work efficiently even remotely but if not done well, it exposes the industrial network and induces a lot of threats and threat in an industrial network could mean threat to the general population that is us. Take for example a utility organisation remote access. If there is a threat, the station can go down impacting electricity and water to the general population so remote access continues to a very important vulnerability to be dealt with.
How has COVID-19 impacted the thought process around OT/IoT security?
The pandemic has made cybersecurity more prevalent. Post pandemic, it has now also become more important in the minds of operational technology leaders. Now we see more interest from their side in what we provide in the form of security and visibility. Organisations know that they must be ready now and for the future because they must react quickly incase the need arises. It has also woken up government organisations. We have seen a lot of compliance and regulations coming from government regulators in the Middle East and globally from USA and Europe.
How would you describe the demand for OT and IoT security solutions in the UAE and what are your plans and strategy for the Middle East?
Events like GISEC that shows the interest of the UAE government with regards to cyber security, helps raise awareness among organisations. We see the demand grow significantly because of this awareness and because of the compliance and regulations that are pushing organisations to take actions. As Nozomi Networks, we have been focused on the UAE from a very early stage and have grown exponentially over the last few years. We believe in providing the right products and the right support on ground for our partners and customers alike. Our focus and strategy are to keep growing in the Middle East by continuously providing this support and by hiring more skilled personnel.
In the last one year we have grown 60 to 70 percent with regards to personnel and we want to keep investing here because the region is large and complex and we believe in local support than flying people down to provide support. We also have a large partner network focused on cyber security and partners that focus on industrial networks.
