DarkMatter, which made its GITEX debut this year, is showcasing its holistic cybersecurity capabilities spanning across forensics, regulations, secure comms, blockchain advisory, cyber resilience frame work and Big Data services.
“There has been a massive shift in the threat landscape. Now, critical infrastructure is getting more connected and with that comes security issues. With the UAE’s vision of moving to Smart Cities, security has become part of the fabric at the leadership level; it is not an after-thought, says Harshul Joshi, VP for Cyber Governance, Risk and Compliance, DarkMatter.
Joshi says the protection of critical infrastructure is of paramount importance to DarkMatter. “If you look at the industrial control systems, they were never meant to be connected. It is an architecture that was never created with security in mind. Now all these systems are getting online and you have to put a strong layer of security on top of it.”
He adds that most of the security breaches that we see today can be avoided by putting in place basic controls. “Before you revamp your security architecture, make sure that you invest in basic building blocks. It is important to classify data and know what are your information assets and where they are.”
Joshi says there is a strong momentum towards compliance in the region now. “This region needs to work with rest of the world. For example, if you are opening up an e-commerce platform, you need to make sure that you are PCI compliant. The fact that the UAE is hosting ISO/IEC SC 27 conference in Abu Dhabi is testimonial to the fact that this region is getting more open to global compliance standards.”
DarkMatter is now gearing up to launch its SOC, which Joshi says, will offer both public and private enterprises true security operations with minimal false positives. “If you look at GDP of this country, a major chunk of it comes from operational technologies. So it is important to look at security operations from an OT perspective as well, not just IT,” says Joshi.
