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Over 50m cyber attacks recorded in GCC

Dubai - Since the lockdown, 82% of the UAE’s remote workers say they are more conscious of their organisation’s cybersecurity policies

A combined 56,873,271 e-mail, URL, malware, and banking malware attacks were recorded in the GCC region during the first half of 2020, data by Trend Micro has found.

In the GCC, Trend Micro detected 41,236,550 e-mail threats; 13,181,016 URL victims; and 61,314 URL hosted attacks. Malware continues to surge, with Trend Micro recording 2,392,097 malware detections, and another 2,294 banking malware detections in the region. Worldwide, Covid-19 related threats have been the single largest type of threat faced by organisations in the first half of the year. In just six months, Trend Micro blocked 8.8 million Covid-19 related threats, nearly 92 per cent of which were spam delivered via e-mails. In the GCC, Trend Micro blocked 163,774 Covid-19 threats: 127,415 URL attacks, 36,312 e-mail spam attacks, and 47 malware attacks.

Supporting Middle East organisations in their secure digital transformation, Trend Micro will exhibit at Gitec under the theme of ‘The Art of Cybersecurity’. At Gitex, Trend Micro will showcase cybersecurity solutions across cloud (Cloud One Hybrid Cloud Security), user protection for endpoints (Apex One), eemail and web, detection and response (XDR), Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control security (TXOne Networks), and network protection from known, unknown, and undisclosed threats (Network Defense).

“The GCC’s high rates of cyber-attacks across e-mail, URL, and malware show that cybercriminals are ramping up their exploits of the weak points in organisations’ endpoints, network, and cloud — especially with Covid-19-related threats,” said Dr. Moataz Bin Ali, vice president, Middle East & North Africa, Trend Micro.

“As the region’s only in-person technology event in 2020, Gitex is a key event for Trend Micro to spread the importance of cybersecurity in the shift to digital transformation,” added Bin Ali. “We are returning to Gitex to show how Middle East organisations can reinvent their cybersecurity posture and processes”

Encouragingly, since the lockdown, 82 per cent of the UAE’s remote workers say they are more conscious of their organisation’s cybersecurity policies, according to Trend Micro’s recent study “Head in the Clouds”. However, many employees are still breaking the rules anyway due to limited understanding or resource constraints. During Gitex, Trend Micro will also educate organizations about the importance of not having a one-size-fits-all cybersecurity strategy, but rather tailoring their cybersecurity strategies to the most common employee attitudes and behaviors on risk awareness, risk management, and risk avoidance, and personal accountability.

business@khaleejtimes.com