CIO opinion
CIO OPINION
another case, attacks happen on the electric
grid or oil refineries so this could stop the
availability of electricity in a city or, for
example, stop the production of oil facilities.
These sorts of attacks have been happening
in Kuwait but the results have not come out.
There is no big incident in Kuwait at the
moment but the extensive use of critical
infrastructure facilities opens the door for
such types of attacks.
Is there anything unique about
Kuwait in terms of cybersecurity?
Yes. Kuwait is an oil producing country and
because of its special geopolitical position it
makes it a target for many different types of
threats and at the same time criminals are
interested in financial institutions there. It’s
like being surrounded by all sides.
How prepared are enterprises in
Kuwait for cyberattack?
There are good preparations that we see in
Kuwait by organisations and also measures
pushed by the government for securing the
infrastructure but there is also the possibility
for an enhanced situation with potential for
better protection against these threats.
The first problem is actually awareness. A lot
of countries, governments and organisations
are doing training for employees to help
them deal with cyberattacks and from
attacks within their organisations. In Kuwait,
this could be better.
These are messages in What’s App and
sometimes email. Cybercriminals use these
a lot, we have seen them in Kuwait last year
around Ramadan and they say things like
‘open this file’ and sometimes people sadly
believe it’s genuine but when they open it
it’s malicious.
We have seen different levels of these
attacks some of them are advanced. All
types of attackers use these attacks.
“
PEOPLE NEED TO
KNOW WHERE TO
CLICK AND WHERE
NOT TO CLICK AND
TO KNOW WHAT
IS A SUSPICIOUS
FILE AND THEN
AVOID THOSE.
ABOUT MOHAMAD
AMIN HASBINI:
Mohamad Amin Hasbini joined
Kaspersky Lab in 2013 as a Senior
Security Researcher in the Global
Research and Analysis Team (GReAT).
He is responsible for Kaspersky’s
expert positioning in the Middle East,
Turkey and Africa, as well as research
development and knowledge support of
the regional office.
What would the advice be to avoid
becoming a victim of these?
We need to be careful. First, we need better
awareness and awareness starts with
learning how to deal with technologies that
we rely on.
People need to know where to click and where
not to click and to know what is a suspicious
file and then avoid those. This is a good start.
Another good measure is to activate
two factor authentication. This is highly
recommended for any user. n
With the Middle East region as a
whole having a problem with mobile
security is the same true of Kuwait?
We see that users in Kuwait are using new
types of mobile devices which automatically
puts them in a safer situation. Older devices
with older software are usually vulnerable
for attacks that allow the attacker to get into
the device and have full control over it which
is very bad of course.
What are the current threats
in Kuwait?
Kuwait users and organisations need to be
careful around holidays such as Ramadan.
These holidays are attractive for attackers
because they can send messages saying
things like ‘congratulations on the holidays.’
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