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Cyber-threats need smart tactics

Dubai - For a city to become smart and resilient, a complex framework of policy, guidelines and laws is a must

Security has to be woven every step of the way within the set strategic objectives to achieve the smart city vision, said Rabih Dabboussi, senior vice-president of sales, business development and marketing at DarkMatter Group.
Speaking to Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the recent Hack In The Box Security Conference, Dabboussi explained that regarding security protocols as an afterthought to a smart city vision is setting up for a failure.
"We have seen how complex the digital infrastructure in smart cities are," he said. "For a city to become smart and resilient, you need a complex framework of policy, guidelines and laws. Everyone and everything will be attacked at one point or another, so you need to look at your capacity to recover. For this to happen, the focus has to be on simulating scenarios of what happens when something will be compromised," he added.
Organised by Hack In The Box (HITB), in cooperation with Dubai Electronic Security Centre (DESC), the event featured a range of high profile cybersecurity speakers from around the world who explored cutting-edge developments in the field, including topics such as AI and blockchain tech.
"We are confident that this event will have a huge impact on cybersecurity not only in the UAE but regionally," said Dr Bushra Al Blooshi, DESC head of research and innovation.
"The event tackled the latest in cybersecurity challenges as a strategic component of digital transformation, and offers our government and academic partners global training opportunities. We are looking to support Dubai governmental efforts in its futuristic plans and initiatives by highlighting electronic security challenges in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, among others."
HITB founder and CEO Dhillon Kannabhiran added: "Our objective is to always raise public awareness about the risks and the important role of security in the digital age. We chose to return to Dubai as our Middle East venue because it has been a regional leader in the fields of cybersecurity, and we are confident that our platform will resonate with its growing community of researchers and next-generation security professionals."
Dabboussi noted that it is crucial to nurture the next generation of digital talent and equip people with the right technical training and skills to combat cybercrime.
"Cybersecurity in smart cities is unique because of how complex it is; there is a massive digitisation of the structure in an environment that is unprecedented. In addition, the smart city digital footprint continues to evolve and grow everyday. You have a lot of new technologies that come in everyday such as blockchain, AI and IoT. The solution has to be innovative and new."
He also explained that any time there is a cyber-breach at a pillar, there is a ripple effect that has to be contained. "The impact is unlike anything what you would see in another environment, and it causes harm across the whole ecosystem is not countered. For example, if the target is the energy grid, then you will see the impact on anything from hospitals to the public transport systems. The scale means that the defence has to be unique and requires innovative thinking."
- rohma@khaleejtimes.com