Find UK Cyber Security Partners to Protect your Organisation

Why Cyber Security Matters

Cyber threats are a growing global problem.  Countries, including those in the Gulf and the Middle East, face a range of increasingly sophisticated threats from state actors through to cyber criminals seeking to exploit their digitised economies, as well as attacks against the systems that run Critical National Infrastructure.  

According to RiskBased, data breaches exposed 36 billion records in the first half of 2020.  The Word Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity predicts that 74% of businesses will be hacked in the coming year.  There is clear evidence of increased risks from those who seek to exploit our reliance on technology.  And these risks will only increase as the pandemic accelerates our reliance on connectivity through remote working and learning, and as the amount of data we rely on grows.

At the same time, there is a demand for simple and effective guidance and support in what is often seen as a complex and technical subject.  Governments and industry must work together to raise awareness of the risks and combat the threats around cyber security. Most of these risks can be managed if they are properly identified and understood. Although situations will vary sector by sector - for example the cyber threats to a bank are quite different to those facing power and water plants - there are general principles that can help us all improve levels of preparedness and resilience.  

Effective cyber defence is a mixture of the right people, the right processes and the right technology.  Of all of these, it is probably the first that presents the greatest challenge, with countries and employers alike having to make new investment in skills, education and training.  The UK’s many longstanding partnerships in the region can help contribute to collective efforts to address shared threats.   

Why the UK for Cyber Security? 

In the digital world we now live in, building trust and confidence among consumers and businesses alike is crucial to prosperity, and the UK is at the cutting edge of this shift.

  • The UK offers world-leading products, managed services, training, and advice at every stage of the cyber security life cycle. Our reputation for expertise, quality, innovation, and trustworthiness makes UK companies great partners for your cyber security requirements.

  • Certification of industry expertise, products and services is offered by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to give you confidence that UK products and services will safeguard your business and information against cyber threats.

  • Currently ranked number 1 in the ITU’s Cyber Security Index, the UK has the largest and most accessible cyber-security market in Europe. Alongside this, the UK is home to 19 University Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research.

  • During the current phase of the UK’s National Cyber Security Strategy (2016-2021) the UK government has dedicated £1.9bn of extra investment in cyber security to help achieve its goal of the UK being “the safest place to live and work online.” A third National Cyber Security Strategy will be published soon.

  • DIT will gladly work with you to explore UK solutions that reduce the risk of cyber threats as well as help businesses, investors and buyers in the Middle East to successfully do business with the UK.

 

Connect with UK cyber specialists in the Middle East

How UK Cyber Security Companies are Partnering with the Middle East

There are a wide range of UK companies active in the Gulf and wider Middle East, ranging from large primes and enterprise companies, to mid-size companies, SMEs, start-ups and accelerators. Many UK companies have set up a branch office or regional HQ in a Gulf country. Others are UK-based and delivering in market through local partners.

 

Click on the companies below to find out how they are supporting companies and governments in the Middle East with innovative cyber security solutions.  

Localised security systems for the Middle East

BT Security

 

BT has been present in the Middle-East and Africa since the 1980s and supports customers from two regional hubs in Dubai and Johannesburg. BT operates The Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC), an innovation centre in Abu Dhabi, in co-operation partnership with Etisalat and Khalifa University. BT

 

Security is a rapidly expanding part of BT, focussed on keeping its customers safe whilst enabling their digital transformation and adoption of new technologies. With BT Security as a partner, customers benefit from the same expertise and professionalism that BT uses to protect large multi-nationals and critical infrastructure across the globe. BT also works closely with channel partners to enable them to sell BT Security solutions within their own market segments and geographies.

 
BT’s security services include:

  • Managed Security: integrated end-to-end managed services for essential security controls
  • Threat Intelligence: providing improved visibility of the latest threats and the tools to respond
  • Security Advisory: helping to translate business priorities into security strategies and operations

Building a Cyber Ecosystem in the GCC

CyLon

 

CyLon was founded in 2015 to support the security technologies of the future. Since its launch, CyLon has supported 100+ exciting cyber security startups, now valued at over £600m, and 200+ entrepreneurs within the cyber security space. It has operated innovation programmes in the UK, Singapore, South Korea and the Middle East, in partnership with a range of leading corporates, academic institutions and local governments. In 2020, CyLon worked in partnership with the UK-Oman Digital Hub and the Omani Ministry of Technology and Communications to launch the region's first cybersecurity accelerator programme, supporting several early-stage local startups to develop their cyber security idea. This year, CyLon has expanded its work in the region to launch a second programme in Kuwait, in partnership with the Kuwait College of Science and Technology and the British Embassy. 

Upskilling your Team in Cyber Security

Immersive Labs 

 

Immersive Labs empowers organizations to increase, measure and demonstrate human capabilities in every part of their cybersecurity. Our challenge-based content is developed by experts, powered by the latest threat research, and covers every area and level of cybersecurity. With our unique technology, your business can battle-test and evidence its preparedness to face emerging cyber threats. 
 
Since its launch in 2017, Immersive Labs has helped some of the world’s largest companies to power up their cyber skills, including the NHS, Citigroup and Daimler. We have been jointly engaged with our distributor, CyberKnight, in working with organizations in the Middle East to help guarantee readiness against evolving cyber threats by giving our customers the ability to learn through hands-on continuous challenges, scenarios, and crisis simulations. It is our goal to help enterprises in the Middle East to mitigate cyber risk, while equipping them with real-world techniques and knowledge of threats.

Reduce Cyber Risk with Protective DNS

Nominet

 

UK cyber-security company Nominet has managed one of the largest national internet registries in the world since 1996.  The company administers UK internet addresses through the Domain Name System (DNS) and has used this expertise to build protective DNS solutions for governments.  These protective solutions allow governments to identify and control cyber threats from malicious websites at a national scale.  Nominet’s delivery of the UK National Cyber Security Centre’s Protective Domain Name Service (PDNS) forms a vital part of the UK’s Active Cyber Defence programme, designed to continually take action against cyber-attacks from the web.   Nominet is now moving to deploy these solutions to more governments around the world, including to cyber security agencies in the Middle East. 

Cyber Security Training in the Middle East

Protection Group International (PGI) 

 

Since 2013, Protection Group International (PGI) has helped over 50 countries in five continents strengthen their capacity to manage cyber security risks. This includes work in all six GCC countries for government and corporate clients. Our Gulf projects have included: 

  • Designing and developing national cyber security centres and cyber academies.
  • Training and running drills for leadership and cyber security staff to develop and practice their skills.
  • Building security operations centre and incident response capabilities.
  • Running programmes for GCC Central Banks to reskill staff to create new cyber professionals.
  • Providing incident response and penetration testing services. 
  • In Jordan, has PGI worked in partnership with Jordan’s Design and Development Bureau (JODDB) to design and launch a national cyber security academy.

Keeping Business Conversations Secure

SaltDNA

 

SaltDNA is a multi-award-winning cybersecurity company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that builds secure enterprise mobile communications solutions. SaltDNA offers ‘peace of mind’ for organisations who value their privacy, by giving them complete control and secure communications to protect their trusted relationships and stay safe.  End users are busy professionals who need secure voice and video calls, messaging and image/file transfer to make important decisions while on the move. 

SaltDNA is the first company to provide a holistic solution for closed encrypted communications between the users of mobile devices and the secure systems they use within the organisation, with complete control for administrators.  SaltDNA operates in 52 countries, including several in the Middle East. The solution works across multiple sectors such as legal, finance and government.

Why Identity Tech is Critical for Travel

Zamna

 

Zamna is a high-growth, venture-backed UK cybersecurity business that provides secure personal identity data verification for a range of international travel industry customers.  Zamna’s mission is to enable trusted identity data to flow freely and securely through the travel ecosystem and beyond.  As countries move towards the concept of a vaccine linked health-status passport to kick-start travel during the pandemic, the need for secure, verified identity data connected to assured health status will be critical to facilitate a seamless travel experience for passengers and operational efficiencies for airlines and airports.  The company has already delivered 70 million active passport verifications for travel industry clients. British Airways has used Zamna’s technology to verify over 100,000 passenger data sets on a daily basis, with further clients in Europe adding tens of millions of verifications to the platform over the past year alone. In the Gulf, the UAE’s flagship airline Emirates and the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners (GDRFA) used Zamna’s technology to deliver a seamless check-in and transit experience for passengers travelling through Dubai International Airport. Zamna has been instrumental in the development of the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) One ID framework, having won IATA’s One ID innovation award, and is now at the epicentre of the travel industry's push to use technology to harmonise the way identity is managed across a notoriously fragmented travel ecosystem. Zamna’s goal is to work with partners to restart global travel safely, securely and at scale.

Zamna's two core products, Genesis and Altitude, use next-generation cryptographic technologies, including blockchain, and are powered by unique mathematical logic to ensure identity data integrity and security for passengers, airlines, airports and others in the travel ecosystem.  The products securely verify the authenticity of a person’s identity and enable connecting it to their verified health status, without needing to ever view or share the data itself, reducing cyber risk and enhancing GDPR compliance. Zamna was founded in 2016 by University of Oxford alumni Irra Ariella Khi and Alex Gorelik, who continue to work closely with a number of University of Oxford professors to develop their multi-patented, privacy-by-design digital identity infrastructure. 

Connect with UK cyber specialists in the Middle East

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Connect with UK cyber specialists in the Middle East

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