Steve Benton, the Vice President of Anomali Threat Research, says cyber threat has become a full-on business interruption risk
Tell us about the security threat landscape in the MEA region.
Disruption from ransomware and data breaches remain among the top impacts on organizations in the MEA region. Priority investment in Resilience and Preparedness is paramount, and this must use Threat Intelligence to inform it. The region has evolved into a neighbourhood of rapidly growing digital economies. The investment, innovation, and accelerated business growth that defines the region have made it a lucrative target for threat actors.
Actors are working hard to discover entry points and achieve persistence, especially with the objective of stealing sensitive data. Knowing an organization’s attack surface, backed by relevant threat intelligence, is key to prioritizing its reduction and wider preparedness for attack. All of this is in addition to the obvious – energy, oil and gas. Historically this has been the focus in the region and hence the leverage in and beyond the region. Risks to the reliable production of energy remain and are accentuated during times of geopolitical tension.
Geopolitics in the region cannot be ignored. Regional tensions have the potential to destabilize the region and drag countries and global powers into a wider conflict. At a time like this, it is wise for all organizations to adopt threat-led security operations that utilize multiple and overlapping threat defences. Not only will this assure organizations and wider nations during times of uncertainty, but in the long term, this approach is vital to ensure continued growth and success for the MEA region.
Do you believe AI and automation tech are critical to addressing the complexities of modern security operations?
Without a doubt, both are critical to modern security operations. In fact, security operations are now at the very core of assuring both business operations and growth and the safety and security of wider society. Organizations are digitally hugely complex in their own right, and cyber threats have become equally complex. The span of data from security monitoring against the rules and the latest indicators of compromise and attack has grown significantly.
Security is rapidly hitting two major challenges – cost and speed. Better ways need to be found to afford the visibility into the security of an organization that is so desperately needed. This visibility must be bonded to the latest threat intelligence, applied at pace with insights derived, understood, and acted on as a continuous and dynamic security posture and response.
Nothing less will serve the needs of a modern security operation. However, this challenge has gone beyond the capability of any traditional security team. I know I’ve led significant security teams for much of my career, but today, teams need the ability to fully automate their protection and detection and use intelligence writ large.
What I mean by this is the latest threat intelligence relevant to the organization allied with artificial intelligence that partners with the analysts, saving them huge amounts of time and making decisions faster with more precision and impact. It is time for analysts to be able to do things differently, achieve the level of performance they deserve, and fulfil their security missions. We owe it to them! AI, automation, and visibility unlock the door.
According to you, what are the opportunities and challenges for IT security in 2024?
Cyber threat has become a full-on business interruption risk, and for many fully digitized organizations, this is an existential threat – the business literally stops and may never recover. Security has become limited by the capacities and affordability of the visibility and control needed to properly protect the business.
IT security is at a crossroads – compromise with traditional approaches and technology or optimize with an all-encompassing approach that addresses the constraints of visibility, automation, and smart use of AI to achieve the security needed. The traditional beating heart of SIEM and SOAR needs addressing – that’s the opportunity and the challenge.
The answer is threat-led security operations. For that, a different type of SIEM/SOAR is needed. It needs to have been designed around the analysts and what they need to be successful. They need visibility, insight, and pace. Visibility is across their enterprise and the security controls ecosystem. Insight is the bonding of threat intelligence to both the security posture and detecting malicious or suspicious activity.
Pace is the ability to reach a decision and act on this visibility and insight to disrupt attacks and minimize harm. For that, the analyst needs AI with them every step of the way – their own Copilot that understands their enterprise and the threat landscape – sifting through the data and guiding preparation and response.
Is there a skills gap in the cybersecurity industry, especially in the Middle East? How can that gap be bridged?
Absolutely, there is a skills gap – driven by scarcity of supply, the pace of complexity in defending the modern digital enterprise in an ever more dynamic threat landscape, and burnout. Analysts have literally run out of time in their day. Analysts don’t fail, they simply get outstripped by the defensive workload or incident response pace. All they need is the time to understand the threats properly formulate and execute optimal responses at the pace that protects the business and prepares its resilience going forward.
They are trapped on a stress-inducing merry-go-round – dealing with alert after alert – but never feeling they are getting ahead. Anomali has always had the needs of the Analysts at its heart. Our latest platform combines blistering pace, comprehensive visibility, and Anomali Copilot, which empowers all analysts to play at an elite level in protecting their organizations using intelligence (combining threat intelligence and AI) with security operations in a completely different way.
How important are channel partners for Anomali’s regional presence?
Channel partners are critically important for Anoamli’s regional presence. They bring a nuanced understanding of the regional market and customer intimacy. Often, they are able to knit the Anomali solution with the wider needs of the organization or spot where Anoamli’s game-changing capabilities and cost-effectiveness can be pivotal.
