malomatia: Elevating the 'Actual' Capacity, Expertise and Skill of the Cyber Security service provider

During the recently concluded Cyber Security Summit in Qatar, malomatia chief executive, Yousef Al Naama introduced a session entitled ‘The Art of Securing Critical Assets’ where he looked at the service spectrum from both the client’s and service provider’s perspective.

Mr Al Naama first spoke of the compliance landscape: “Government, defense and enterprise stakeholders in Qatar share a common goal with national IT service providers, such as malomatia, of contributing to the long-term vision of the State of Qatar. In a modern, interconnected world, this includes aligning their objectives with the E-Government Strategy 2020 and the National Cyber Security Strategy, which was introduced by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, ictQATAR, in 2014.

“Cyber security is a shared responsibility. All national stakeholders including the government, public and private sector and even individuals must come together. Critically, this also means developing strong partnerships between the public and private sectors in terms of knowledge and technology transfer, as well as charting a common path ahead. We believe that this path must be based on actual capacity and skills, rather than just ambition,” he said.

Qatar is implementing a forward-looking approach and the country is seeing growing demand for bespoke, world-class solutions, capabilities and skills that will help safeguard the nation’s Critical Information Infrastructure. This includes all information and communications technology systems, services, and data assets that are critical to Qatar being able to function effectively in a modern, digital and interconnected world.

In this environment, the threats – motivated by financial gain, ideology or any number of other factors – are numerous, and can cause irreparable reputation damage. They can also affect systems or equipment, or worse.

Malomatia’s CEO said: “At the most fundamental level, we need to collectively focus on enhancing the integrity of Critical Information Infrastructure, while bolstering response and protection against cyber attacks and ensuring that all critical assets are able to recover from these attacks efficiently.

This can be achieved by adopting and upholding global best practices, while sharing information and insights that can ensure a strong risk assessment and management framework is in place. This, naturally, will ensure that all stakeholders are able to build their compliance standards to meet the newly revamped legal framework and regulations in Qatar concerning cyber security.

Mr Al Naama also touched on a very important point: “While consultants seek to help clients to bridge the gap between actual levels of cyber security compliance and the ideal standards that should be maintained by all stakeholders, one of the most important things we must remember is that the industry needs to bridge the gap at the service level between actual capabilities and the capacity to fulfil the needs of various national entities and institutions.

“Qatar is still developing its overall cyber security infrastructure and while it is easy to package the service into simple, commonly understandable components, cyber security is a broad and highly complex proposition that must be accompanied by strong subject matter expertise,” Mr Al Naama said.

“We must address this critical challenge by first looking at capabilities and acquiring subject expertise, coupled with a globally benchmarked approach to delivering Security Services. Only then can a service provider, with all integrity, be able to take these offerings to market.”

Mr Al Naama said: “Therefore, the immediate challenge is not just in closing the demand gap. It is equally important to ensure service integrity and expertise is in place before attempting to be an enabler.

“A longer term agenda is creating partnerships between all stakeholders for building and sustaining critical skills and subject intelligence in tune with an evolving digital landscape. This must be achieved while maintaining an acute understanding of needs, trends and threats in a local and regional context.

malomatia’s CEO concluded his statement by addressing one of the major challenges of building a strong case for elevating standards across the country’s many sectors and stakeholders: “In many cases, this will require first helping clients change their perceptions regarding how important cyber security is. Only then can we focus on the actual process of assessing and managing the entire framework.”