[ISN] Experts Call for Raising Awareness About IT Security

[InfoSec News]

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=11&section=0&article=46429&d=8&m=6&y=2004

M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan
Arab News 
8 June, 2004 
  
RIYADH, 8 June 2004 - A panel of IT experts say local businesses need
multilayer IT security cover because the exponential growth of worms,
viruses and spam e-mail have dramatically changed the security
landscape in the last two years. They also want to raise awareness
about IT security in Saudi Arabia, where poor technical know-how
together with lack of awareness could cost businesses dear.

The experts were attending a meeting organized by Specialists for
Computer Systems (SCS) here on Sunday. SCS says it is a leading
provider of IT security products in the Middle East. The company's
information security solutions include security awareness for
enterprises, security assessments, consultancy, risk management, virus
protection, policy compliance management, access control, integrated
security solution, security knowledge transfer, intrusion detection
system, firewalls, early warning solutions and content filtering.

SCS is an enterprise security partner of Symantec, a Microsoft gold
certified partner for security solutions, and a Cyber Guard and Citrix
Golden partner. It is involved with a number of projects for Saudi
government agencies and the private sector.

The event was attended by experts from various companies including
Muhammad Al-Mandil, SCS president; Esam Daban, vice president; Khalid
Siddiqi, SCS marketing manager; Bashar Bashaireh, Cyber Guard manager
for Middle East and North Africa; and Hani Hijazi of Citrix.

Al-Mandil and Daban said demand for stronger application security and
security for wireless networks will drive the growth of the
information security services market, as will the continuing trend
toward outsourcing network-security functions such as application
security testing, disaster recovery and management of network security
devices.

"In 2002, the global financial impact from virus attacks dropped for
the first time in seven years," said Bashar. However, the financial
impact of virus attacks has been on the rise again in the recent past.

Many factors have contributed to the rising costs, including the
reality that many companies are still not prepared to handle the
threat from fast-spreading virus attacks. Some studies nonetheless
predict more than 20 percent annual growth in spending for information
security services.