Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet, elaborate to Security MEA on how they will be providing an opportunity to explore technology at its best at GITEX.
What does your company do and why is it important for you to be exhibiting at GITEX 2021?
Fortinet secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. We empower customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network—today and into the future. During the pandemic, cybercriminals have been relentless in their pursuit to gain access to all kinds of information and cause harm to businesses. What better platform than GITEX to showcase how we’ve been helping our customers in the region, and how they can leverage our solutions to secure everything – from edge to cloud.
What products or solutions will you be exhibiting throughout the weeklong technology show?
Our key focus at GITEX is the Fortinet Security Fabric. As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, we will highlight solutions such as the FortiXDR that is designed to help organizations federate their distributed security technologies to better identify and respond to active threats while ensuring seamless interoperation of Fortinet’s portfolio of Fabric-enabled solutions. Also in focus will be the Fortinet Adaptive Cloud Security Solutions that make it possible to address cloud security at the platform, application, and network levels all under one umbrella with single-pane-of-glass visibility and control, and consistent policies. Finally, the emerging Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) will be key, especially since one of the core components of SASE, along with cloud-delivered security, is SD-WAN.
Which are the major cybersecurity trends influencing the Middle East?
The Middle East has never been a significant target for cyberattacks. The rapid digitization among the countries in the middle-east has open the doors for cyber-attacks. From ransomware attacks on OT infrastructures to socially engineered plots, businesses are always at risk. During the last six months, FortiGuard Labs mid-year threat intelligence reports data showed that the average weekly ransomware activity in June 2021 was more than tenfold higher than levels from one year ago, globally. This demonstrates a consistent and overall steady increase over a year period. Attacks crippled the supply chains of multiple organizations, in particular sectors of critical importance, and impacted daily life, productivity, and commerce more than ever before. Increased cybersecurity awareness is important as ever to provide timely training and education to help avoid falling victim to scareware and malvertising tactics. Tracking the prevalence of botnet detections showed a surge in activity. At the beginning of the year, 35% of organizations detected botnet activity of one sort or another, and six months later it was 51%.
How does your offerings enable organisations to enhance their cybersecurity preparedness in the new normal?
Businesses are adapting to the new normal, we are encouraging organizations to look at their technology investments from a new perspective; one that will ensure their businesses’ overall security posture and boost businesses continuity.
Fortinet has been driving businesses to rethink their security investments and focus on a holistic solution. This year, we are taking this thinking a step forward with our security-driven networking strategy for businesses, with a specific focus on driving SD-WAN adoption and offering expertise around the need for the convergence of networking and security as organizations work to protect data in distributed environments.
What special engagements or events are you planning to network and entertain with your partners and customers besides meeting them at GITEX Technology Week?
We will be hosting live demonstrations at our stand, to not only highlight the features of the Fortinet Security Fabric but also how businesses have benefitted on various levels – from productivity to scalability. We will have three pods in our stand to give our customers a virtual experience of our solutions.
What does your company hope to achieve at the end of the show?
We are expecting GITEX to be a mega event this year to give visitors and exhibitors alike the opportunity to explore technology at its best. Events like this help to gather people who want to share their knowledge and help to push the global digital transformation agenda ahead.
Where can we find you at GITEX?
We are located in hall no 7, stand A20.