AKJ E-Crime & Cybersecurity Congress 2024 - UAE | AKJ Associates Ltd | 3 September 2024 | The St. Regis Abu Dhabi, Nation Towers - Corniche St - Al Bateen - Abu Dhabi - UAE

The hackers are already using AI, so how can defenders quickly respond?

Huge investments and upgrades to cybersecurity technology planned in the UAE as threats multiply and AI is utilised on both sides of the fight

99% of UAE companies plan to increase their cybersecurity budget in the next 12 months.
91% of these companies anticipate substantial growth of 10% or more in their cybersecurity budgets.

Why? During the past two years, the vast majority of United Arab Emirates-based businesses have experienced a cybersecurity incident. Analysis carried out by the UAE Cyber Security in the ‘State of the UAE – Cybersecurity Report 2024’ highlights the scale of the problem: the report has identified over 155,000 vulnerable assets within the UAE, with more than 40% of critical vulnerabilities remaining unaddressed for over five years. This vulnerability, coupled with the surge in advanced cyber-attacks such as ransomware, underscores the essential need for robust cyber defences in a region that is at the forefront of AI-driven technological innovations and geopolitical significance.

According to various pieces of recent research aggregated by AKJ Associates:
• 87% of companies in UAE have faced different forms of cyber incidents in the past two years.
• 85% of UAE respondents said they expect a cybersecurity incident to disrupt their business in the next 12 to 24 months.
• 65% of respondents said they experienced a cybersecurity incident in the last 12 months, and 52% of those affected said it cost them at least US$300,000.
• 82% of UAE respondents said that having multiple point solutions slowed down their team’s ability to detect, respond and recover from incidents. This raises significant concerns as 78% of organizations said they have deployed ten or more point-solutions in their security stacks, while 26% said they have 30 or more.
• 90% of UAE companies also highlight talent shortage as an issue.
• 51% said they had more than ten roles related to cybersecurity unfilled in their organization at the time of the survey.
• 95% envision integrating AI technologies into their cybersecurity frameworks to fill more than 10% of those unfilled cybersecurity roles.
• 68% are planning to significantly upgrade their IT infrastructure in the next 12 to 24 months.
• 66% plan to upgrade existing solutions.
• 54% plan to deploy new solutions.
• 54% plan to invest in AI-driven technologies.

2024 Speakers

Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti
Head of Cybersecurity, United Arab Emirates Government

First Lieutenant Nasser Al Neyadi
Head of Information Security Department, Ministry of Interior

Khaled Al Teneiji
Cybersecurity Head, ENOC

Dr. Ebrahim Al Alkeem
Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence Director, Abu Dhabi Government

Hussain Al Khalsan
Chief Information Security Officer, ZAND

Aus Alzubaidi
CISO, Director of IT & Media, MBC Group

Zaheer Mubarak Shaikh
CISO, Al Maryah Community Bank

Anoop Kumar
Head of Information Security Governance Risk and Compliance, Gulf News, Al Nisr Publishing

Manit Sahib
Ethical Hacker, The Global Fund

Rajesh Yadla
Head of Information Security, Al Hilal Bank

Vikalp Shrivastava
Global CISO, Kerzner International

Sultan Al Mansoori
Director of Information Security, Abu Dhabi Media (ADM)

Hussein Hassan Shafik
Group CISO and Privacy Officer, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

Simon Brady
Managing Editor, AKJ Associates Ltd

Bilal Baig
Technical Director, MMEA, Trend Micro

Michael Byrnes
Director, Solutions Engineering META, BeyondTrust

Mohamed Djenane
Sr. Director Sales Engineering MENA/APAC, Seclore

Ara Antoun
Chief Operations Officer, MEInfosec

John Smith
CTO EMEA, Veracode

Meenakshisundaram Ramakrishna Sahadevan
Product Marketing Analyst, ManageEngine

Mamdouh Al-Gendy
Senior Technology Consultant, Entrust

Alexey Lukatsky
Managing Director, Positive Technologies

Gary Pollock
Solutions Engineering Manager, CyberArk

Hafeez Rehman
Group Manager, Security Consultant Team, Kaspersky

2024 Sponsors

STRATEGIC SPONSORS:
• BeyondTrust
• Kaspersky
• ThreatLocker
• Trend

EDUCATION SEMINAR SPONSORS:
• CyberArk
• DarkSight
• Entrust
• Green Method
• Gulf IT
• ManageEngine
• Positive Technologies
• Seclore
• Veracode

NETWORKING SPONSORS:
• Bulwark
• Izoologic
• Mimecast
• Sectona