“The one trend we definitely see is that security is a board-level concern,” said Mohamed Arif, Windows & Devices Business Group Lead at Microsoft Gulf, in an interview with Gulf Times.
Microsoft recently hosted a security event titled ‘CSO Think Like a Hacker’, and brought in security expert Paula Januszkiewicz, CEO of CQURE, to speak before chief security officers (CSOs) and other stakeholders in Qatar.
Arif said the event aims to create a forum or community for CSOs in Qatar and to bring in expertise from the industry to provide global insights and trends to the participants.
“There are more non-IT executives who are interested to know what their security surface looks like and how protected they are because they feel the need to ensure that part is covered to protect their business,” Arif stressed.
This was reiterated by Januszkiewicz, who said: “I was positively surprised…because the participants were so engaged and they were on the ground looking at problems out there and figuring out how to solve them.”
Asked on the preparedness level, Januszkiewicz said based on her evaluation of the participants, companies in Qatar are “making extreme efforts” to make sure that they are safe from malware and other forms of cyber threats.
“You can see a high level of awareness, take for example on protecting USB drives. Based on what we have seen, there are a lot of oil companies that have created USB sticks that are not accessible by regular employees. That kind of approach and understanding the threat is already there,” she explained.
However, Januszkiewicz pointed out that the implementation of code execution prevention or identifying all types of malicious codes or malware still pose a challenge to the participants.
“They should be on the level where code, random code or unknown code has no chance of being executed on the user’s computer if the user brings it in either from websites, email, attachments, pen drives, from home, or from colleagues,” she said. “They still need to get there with the solutions because they are not ready to receive the wave of malware…but they are on a good track with the understanding of the problem, and that’s what every CSO should have.”
Arif sai,: “Staying on top of the latest trends and solutions is how you secure yourself. You never get confident. And I think we saw a lot of that from the CSOs we’ve met during the event. That’s exactly the kind of approach and attitude that will help you secure your companies.
“We see our role as being a trusted adviser to all these customers. We want to be there to enable them with the technologies we offer, but more importantly with the guidance that we provide them and show them the path that enables them to be more secure.”