A cybersecure Middle East.

Hi folks!

Well, I’m back home from my month+ intercontinental business trip – but I’ve still got plenty to tell and show you from the trip. And that includes yet another key Middle Eastern cybersecurity event (expo + conference) – GISEC in Dubai. And since it was both a biggie and a goodie and in this most promising of regions, I just had to be there to speak, meet folks, have meetings, etc…

The expo is positioned as Middle East + Africa-focused, but in reality, the participants and visitors come from much further afield. Looks like the Emirates are aiming for something bigger than just a regional event. And good luck to them!

The scale of the event is impressive. For a dedicated IT-security expo – it’s bigger than the IT-security hall of good old CeBIT. Still, back in those days, IT-security wasn’t as big of a deal as it is now. Ah, simpler times.

Anyway, the size is truly impressive. Looking one way – you can’t see the end of it:

Look the other way – same thing! ->

And bang in the middle – our green booth standing proudly:

A quick wander was due…

There were so many company names I’d never heard of before. I wonder which of them will make it big – and which will crash and burn before they even get close to the finish line?

There were also several large spaces for talks:

Pretty packed and buzzing. Something tells me we might be looking at a new leader in the “cybersecurity events” scene ->

PT’s also here – good for them. Last time I bumped into them was just the previous week in Cairo…

As per – cyber-hackathon contests. Wishing all the participants good luck!

Oh! Group-IB is here too:

Trend Micro… the last surviving dinosaur from the old days?…

Most of the other big names ~~from the previous millennium~~ from the dawn of the cybersecurity era have either disappeared or were sold off ages ago (who even remembers F-Prot or Computer Associates anymore?), or they’ve been chopped up and rebranded recently – like both McAfee and Symantec (wow, Symantec has rebranded so hard they don’t even have a proper Wikipedia page anymore). But Trend Micro is still alive! I won’t comment on the quality of their products, but the fact that they’re one of the very few last dinosaurs standing – that deserves respect…

Oops – I spoke too soon! Here’s ESET:

Hmmm – I’m reminded of some bad blood from way back. Now, I’m not one to hold onto grudges – but I do keep notes (and photo-archives). For example:

Back in the late 2000s, these guys made a name for themselves on the Russian internet by hiring trolls to post on forums claiming “the market’s tired of Kaspersky; it needs new solutions – like those of ESET” and stuff like that. Well, karma can be a b**ch!. They didn’t make it big in Russia, and they didn’t have much success elsewhere – either in the West or the East. The moral to the story? I think the Russian idiom sums it up nicely” “Don’t set a trap for someone else; you might just fall into it yourself”!

Cybersecurity is of course being taken really seriously by the powers that be in the UAE. That’s why the event is this big, and why the national cyber-authority had such a massive installation at the expo: