Low IT security leaves ME businesses open to cyber attacks

Globally, businesses and government entities are investing heavily on IT security but Middle East businesses are spending less than 1 per cent of their overall IT budgets on it, according to a report.
Last year, hackers stole roughly 81.5 million records while carrying out more than 740 confirmed data breaches. Many of the attacks targeted household name brands, costing the global economy up to USD 575 billion, and destroying consumer confidence, all the while companies still believed their data was secure.
Fluke Networks says it is concerned that the IT leaders in the region are allocating budgets to only meet current compliance requirements, leaving businesses vulnerable to attacks. Another concern is the increased use of mobile devices in organisations.

It is no surprise that these devices are increasingly being brought into the workplace, and used to perform both business critical functions as well as private user tasks.
"There's a significant urgency in the borderless enterprise model, where IT departments don't always control the entire delivery path, but are expected to fix if something goes wrong.
"Therefore, it's important that IT and the business work together to establish a process and methodology that orchestrates the adoption of SaaS applications into the enterprise," said Werner Heeren, Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, Fluke Networks.

In fact, the average corporate user has anywhere from 2-4 mobile devices, most of which require wireless connectivity. Gartner predicts that by 2017, there will be 1.3 billion new business mobile devices.

In this rapidly changing model, end users are demanding access to applications, development platforms, and network infrastructure as a service over the Internet, the report said.
But with this transformation into a borderless enterprise, IT departments are finding it difficult to ensure heightened end-user experience, and business effectiveness of its workforce, it said.