Reconnecting in-person with partners and customers at GITEX, says CyberKnight

Avinash Advani, founder and CEO, CyberKnight explains to Security MEA that this year theme for them at GITEX is Never Trust, Always Verify: Gaining Intelligence & Visibility in a Zero Trust World.

What does your company do and why is it important for you to be exhibiting at GITEX 2021?
CyberKnight is a cybersecurity advisory and value-added-distributor (VAD) covering the Middle East with on-the-ground presence in all key regional markets. Our ZTX (Zero Trust Security) methodology incorporates emerging and market-leading cybersecurity solutions that protect the entire attack surface, by leveraging AI, threat intelligence and collective defense. CyberKnight helps security and risk teams at enterprise and government customers simplify breach detection, prevention, and incident response, while addressing regulatory compliance. CyberKnight’s Art of Cybersecurity Distribution business model enables strategic partners to achieve greater market penetration, return-on-investment, and time-to-value.

GITEX is the largest IT show in the region and being present this year is critical for us as well as our participating vendors, to get connected in-person to customers and partners that we have been unable to meet with face-to-face for 18 months due to the pandemic. In addition, we will be highlighting an extremely important theme: Never Trust, Always Verify: Gaining Intelligence & Visibility in a Zero Trust World via live demos and presentations from our vendors, on-stand and in Security X-Labs. Also, we always look at optimizing and evolving our product portfolio, so we will be meeting with other market-leading cybersecurity vendors to explore potential synergies.

What products or solutions will you be exhibiting throughout the weeklong technology show?
We have various partners participating with us this year at GITEX. All of them are focusing on different areas and they are as follows:

  • Crowdstrike – EPP, EDR, Threat Intelligence & IR
  • Cyware – SOAR & TIP
  • StrikeReady – AI-Driven Digital Cybersecurity Analyst
  • Stealthbits now a part of Netwrix – Data Access Governance, AD Security & PAM
  • PhishRod – Security Awareness & Training, Phishing Defense
  • RiskIQ – Attack Surface Management
  • Attivo – AD Security, Cloud Security & Deception
  • Arista – NDR, Network Packet Brokers, Secure Segmentation & Connectivity
  • Immersive Labs – Cyber Skills Development & Training
  • Illumio – Zero Trust Micro-segmentation
  • Armis – Agentless IoT & OT Security
  • Appgate – Zero Trust Remote Access
  • Seclore – Digital Rights Management & Data Classification

Which are the major cybersecurity trends influencing the Middle East?
The major cybersecurity trends influencing Middle East are cloud security, Zero Trust Security, SOC Automation using ML/AI, Detection & Response: EDR, NDR, XDR, Threat Intelligence and Phishing Defense.

How does your offerings enable organisations to enhance their cybersecurity preparedness in the new normal?
Our offering has been built around a Zero Trust Security Framework, which inherently enables the mobile workforce and cloud adoption, by protecting data accessed by users, devices and applications, no matter where they are located.

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 a glamorous gala dinner on one of the evenings catering to 150+ of our strategic customer, partner, and vendor VIPs. The spectacle will include an award ceremony, live entertainment, and interactive competitions.

What does your company hope to achieve at the end of the show?
In business, relationships are everything. So, we are looking to reconnect in-person with the strategic partners, customers, and vendors whom we have been unable to meet face-to-face with since the start of the pandemic.

We believe that many customers and partners are keen to hear about our theme, so we will get the opportunity to educate the IT security community and create awareness around this very important topic.

Lastly, as we approach the end of the year, many organizations are looking at ways to utilize their remaining budgets, as well as plan for next year’s budget, so we have high expectations for lead-generation.

Where can we find you at GITEX?
We have the largest stand in the cybersecurity area, Hall 1-D25.