stc Bahrain, the leading telecommunications company in the region, are on a mission to revolutionize the technology landscape and enable safer and smarter digital transformation across Bahrain. As part of its growing presence across the Kingdom, stc Bahrain, in partnership with EDB, hosted its first-ever #stctechtalk event. In September, they covered the importance of ‘The Growing Threat of Cybercrime’ with findings and expertise from industry experts. 

With the ever-growing online world, the techtalks event uncovered the impact that weak security measures have had on businesses and why it’s more important than ever for organizations to have strict cybersecurity measures in place to keep up with the pace of potential threats.

Every business needs maximum cybersecurity protection

stc’s vision is to give every business the protection they need and deserve to help their organizations thrive. Every organisation, no matter the size, requires cyber security solutions to prevent the worst from happening. There are several things that organizations must be aware of in order to remain secure, ranging from data protection and device insurance to preventing outages and avoiding harmful malware and viruses.

Describing the role stc plays in creating innovative cyber security solutions for businesses across the Kingdom, Fahad Al Jutaily, CEO, Sirar by stc, says:
“stc Bahrain is a leading cutting-edge managed cyber security provider in Bahrain that empowers organisations to take control of their cyber operations and digital capabilities. We are further enhancing our managed cyber security capabilities with Sirar by stc and stc Bahrain partnership by co-innovating, collaborating at scale to support larger markets and co-investing to meet customer expectations and maximise business outcome. Sirar by stc as a Regional Managed Cybersecurity Service Provider, we have necessary skilled resources, well defined and proven processes, innovative technologies, and local regional and global threat intelligence to support customers to enhance the effectiveness of customer’s security operations.”
 

Organizations must adapt to new security measures

It’s crucial for businesses to have the right strategies and solutions in place to prevent cyberattacks. Having the right services in place will continue to work to improve your resilience against cyber threats as your digital ecosystem expands.

Discussing the new cutting-edge technologies that are now in place for businesses, Haider Pasha, CISO at Palo Alto Networks added:
“In the modern enterprise, users require immediate uninterrupted access to critical apps and data, no matter where they're located. With the increase in cloud adoption, mobile workforce, and branch expansion it has become much more difficult to secure access to applications. Simply put, the old method of forcing all branch and mobile traffic through corporate headquarters to provide security no longer makes sense. Instead, you can deliver the same network security stack from the cloud such that traffic destined for the cloud does not have to hit corporate networks. This new approach to network security is called Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE. SASE is the convergence of networking and security services into a single cloud-delivered platform that can deliver zero trust network access services well. These are one of few new technologies which organizations should become adaptable to, to overcome the latest cybersecurity challenges.”
 

Cyber attacks are continuing to grow at an alarming rate

Due to the volume of businesses now being online will all business management software becoming accessible anywhere, anytime, cyberattacks are increasing for businesses without cybersecurity solutions in place. 
Describing the overall challenges faced by businesses because of cyber security threats, Jad Hajj, Partner at Strategy& says: 
“As cyberattacks grow in volume and complexity, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping under-resourced security operations analysts stay ahead of threats. AI technologies like machine learning and natural language processing provide rapid insights to cut through the noise of daily security alerts, drastically reducing response times. To address complex challenges, many organisations have taken on efforts to implement artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions into their cyber operations.”
 

The importance of cybersecurity on a national scale

It’s crucial for all businesses to have cybersecurity measures in place, not just for themselves, but for their customers and the rest of the Kingdom. Highlighting the problems the Kingdom faces with cybersecurity issues as a whole, panel expert Shaikh Salman Al Khalifa - CEO, NCSC (National Cybersecurity Company) added:

“Defining a national cybersecurity strategy for the Kingdom on such a large scale including both government and private sector is a difficult task. In order to quickly expedite the process, we discussed with a segment of each sector to understand the commonalities. This helped us define the right standards, procedures and, more importantly the right awareness programs that could help solve problems on the ground. This covered government and private sectoral standards, including the most heavily regulated industry, the financial sector. “

To find out more about everything that was discussed on the growing threat of cybercrime, you can watch the full video here. 

If you need more information on tackling cybersecurity, visit our recent blog here on the strategies businesses should have in place to prevent cyberattacks.  

If you would like to speak to one of our experts for help and advice on dealing with cybersecurity for your business, contact our support team by calling 128 or emailing us at businesssupport@stc.com.bh.