Primary cybersecurity threat to Oman is email-borne malware, says expert

The primary cybersecurity threat to Oman is email-borne malware. Ransomware and phishing attacks are also on the rise, says an expert.

Speaking exclusively to Muscat Daily, Raj Sabhlok, president of ManageEngine, the brand known for making efficient and thoughtful IT management software and a division of the popular Zoho Corporation said, “Going forward, one of the key challenges Oman will face is risk that Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) pose to enterprise data and IT security. In the IT departments, those external threats compound the internal threat of poor IT management practices. The internal threats range from lax endpoint management such as failure to containerise enterprise data on employee-owned devices to inconsistent application patching, weak password management, and more. Healthcare and financial services are top targets of cyberattacks.”

Speaking on the integration to the role of IT management and cybersecurity in addressing the latest technology developments in global cloud, networking, and security management, he added, “Recent security breaches have made it clear that just about any IT element can become an attack vector, and improper IT management just paves the way for cybercriminals. With latest technology developments in cloud and elsewhere, organisations need to be proactive in IT management, so that the opportunities and benefits do not come at the cost of breaches, data theft, and other cyberattacks.

“Of course, the IT management tools must support that proactive posture, both as individual products as well as an integrated suite.”

On the safety of cloud, Sabhlok said, “Over the years, cloud companies have invested heavily in the security of their cloud infrastructure and applications. The investments include the resources needed to create redundant copies of data, encrypt data, authenticate users, and more. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has more than 1,800 security controls for its services, the BBC reports. And the exponential adoption of cloud technologies in the recent past is a testament to the overall security of the cloud.

“Meanwhile, cloud vendors continue to enhance the security of their offerings so that they comply with the growing array of data protection and data privacy laws such as EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act. Going forward, cloud vendors will have to scale their IT to accommodate relentless growth: Gartner predicts worldwide public cloud services revenue will reach US$411.4bn in 2020 compared to the 2017 revenue of US$260.2bn. Mobility will be another challenge for cloud vendors as well as keeping operating and capital expenses in check as demand for their services grow.”