Between July and September 2024, identity-focused attacks (most notably those targeting credential theft), surged, representing 25% of Cisco’s incident response cases. These types of intrusions have become increasingly prevalent due to the accessibility of simple-to-use hacking tools.

Meanwhile, ransomware attacks continued to dominate the threat landscape, constituting approximately 40% of cases. The quarter saw the emergence of several new ransomware variants such as RansomHub, DragonForce and RCRU64, in addition to recurring threats like BlackByte and Cerber.

Education, financial services and the manufacturing industry faced the brunt of these attacks, collectively accounting for over 30% of reported breaches. This pattern mirrors trends identified in earlier quarters of 2024, suggesting hackers are consistently and deliberately targeting these industries.

Salman Faqeeh, Managing Director of Cisco Saudi Arabia, stated: “The rise in identity-based attacks and persistent ransomware threats reflect the evolving cyber landscape. At Cisco, our priority is equipping customers with advanced security solutions to bolster their digital resilience.” He added, “Black Hat MEA is an ideal forum to share threat insights and unveil our innovations that mitigate identity-based attacks, prevent breaches, and close exploit gaps”.

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At Black Hat MEA 2024, Cisco will serve as a Strategic Sponsor under the theme “Innovating a New Era of Security,” showcasing its latest advancements in cybersecurity. A particular focus will be on securing AI-powered data centers and distributed environments, ensuring robust protection across all devices and applications.

Splunk, a cybersecurity company which is now part of Cisco, will also exhibit its own cutting-edge solutions, including next-generation Security Operations Centres (SOC) and tools for Operational Technology (OT) environments. Finally, Lothar Renner, Managing Director of Cisco Security, EMEA, is set to deliver a keynote titled “Redefining Security in the Age of AI,” spotlighting Cisco’s forward-looking approach to security in the evolving threat landscape.

Attendees at Black Hat MEA 2024 can visit Cisco at booth H1-T20 at the Riyadh Exhibition & Conference Centre between November 26-28.

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HE Vice Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Haitham bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ohali commented: “Technology is a key enabler in achieving the Saudi Vision 2030. Investments of global tech players like Cisco play a crucial role in strengthening our technology landscape, [bringing] the Kingdom forward on its path to a diversified, knowledge-based economy”.

As well as a brand new headquarters, Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) Program will align with the goals of the Saudi Research and Development National Strategy, focusing on Health and Wellness, Sustainable Environment & Affordable Supply of Essential Needs, Energy & Industrial Leadership, and Economies of the Future.

First launched in Saudi Arabia in 2016, the CDA program has supported digitization and helped to develop innovation in sectors including healthcare, education, smart cities, and government digitization. Cisco has now trained over 335,000 people in the Kingdom on cybersecurity, programming, and networking while also collaborating with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence (SDAIA), and Vision 2030 Giga Projects.

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“Today’s announcements reinforce Cisco’s commitment to support the digital ecosystem in Saudi Arabia,” explained Salman Faqeeh, Managing Director, Cisco Saudi Arabia. “I am proud of what we have achieved through our longstanding presence in the Kingdom and via our active programs like CDA and Cisco Networking Academy, and I am looking forward to more milestones. With our technologies spanning every IT and business objective, from networking to security, collaboration, monitoring, application development, and more, Cisco continues to be at the heart of driving digitization together with our customers and partners”.

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At the heart of this vision is Cisco Security Cloud, a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform for end-to-end security across hybrid multi-cloud environments. The platform unifies the management and policy administration of public and private clouds to protect users, devices, networks, applications, and data.

“With the complexity of hybrid work, continued acceleration of cloud adoption, and the ever-advancing threat landscape, organizations are looking for a trusted partner to help them achieve security resilience,” said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “We believe Cisco is uniquely positioned due to its scale, breadth of solutions and cloud-neutral business model to meet their needs.”

Cisco Security Cloud is based on the zero trust security model, which, as its name implies, describes an approach to security where no access request is trusted without verification regardless of where it comes from.

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To make the verification process as robust and user-friendly and possible, the necessary identity checks take place in the background, allowing users to focus on their work without being constantly interrupted by log-in prompts and other identity verification mechanisms.

Cisco is also building session trust analysis using OpenID Foundation’s Shared Signals and Events standards, which allow cloud services to instantly communicate security alerts and status changes of users.

These and other parts of Cisco’s new strategic vision for enterprise cloud security should help companies accelerate their cloud adoption initiatives. According to a survey of IT professionals in the Middle East, a lack of cybersecurity is among the main reasons why such initiatives proceed at a slow pace.

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