Regional Cybersecurity Summit Kicks off
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MUSCAT: Muscat (The Sixth edition of the Annual Regional Cybersecurity Summit launched in the Omani capital Muscat on Monday, under the theme of “Towards Cyber Resilience”, with the participation of more than 350 people interested in cybersecurity from across the Middle East.
The two-day summit is being organized by the ITU Arab Regional Cybersecurity, in collaboration with a number of regional and global firms specialized in cybersecurity programs and operating in the national infrastructure sectors, including energy and utilities, defense and aviation, financial institutions, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing and government institutions.
In his opening speech, CEO of ITA Dr. Salim Bin Sultan Al-Ruzaiqi said: “Selecting 'Towards Cyber Resilience' as the key theme for the 6th Cybersecurity Summit reflects the pressing need for further collaboration among countries to address the exponential increase of cyber threats and the size of its negative consequences on countries’ economies and security.
"As cyber threats can neither be stopped nor ignored, we can at least mitigate its risks through serious cooperation between countries by putting in place the right policies and standards and enhancing national capabilities as well as exchanging knowledge and experiences,” he added.
“We are proud that Oman is ranked first among Arab countries and fourth globally at the ITU’s global Cybersecurity index in 2017.
Locally, our IT security specialists were able to handle more than 70 million attack targeted government networks last year with an increase of 5000 percent as well as dealing with more than 6 million cyber attacks on government websites with an increase of 300 percent," he continued.
During the first day of the summit, the Information Technology Authority (ITA), represented by the Oman Computer Emergency Readiness Team (OCERT), presented a number of working papers on the "security landscape of cybersecurity threats" and addressed the threats on the international, regional and local informatics arena.
Also, a wide range of topics, highlighting the current trends and future threats that affect the organizations and business effectiveness, was covered on the first day of the summit.
