FEATURE : CIO
Saleh said people are any firm ’ s greatest risk when it comes to cyberattacks , especially as so many employees are working in a hybrid model . According to Saleh , email is one of the key attack vectors , so it ’ s important to invest in advanced email threat detection to identify threats early . “ As the ‘ work from anywhere ’ culture is adopted by many companies in the Middle East and Africa , teams need to develop and deploy clear best practice policies for hybrid working , covering system and network access , data management , user privileges , password hygiene , unauthorised applications , BYOD , data protection , and more . CIOs must also adopt a people-centric approach to enterprise data loss prevention ( DLP ) to counter any data loss arising from people .
Wael Abdoush , GM & Technology Leader – Gulf ,
Levant & Pakistan , IBM
IBM ’ s Abdoush said CIOs moving forward will also be responsible for contributing to two larger organisational priorities : talent development and sustainability .
these and other factors , securing a remote workforce is more difficult than a traditional , on-premises one . The other challenge facing security practitioners is Gen V attacks – the combination of a wide breadth of threats , large scale attacks and a broad attack surface . 2022 began with a massive exploitation of one of the most serious vulnerabilities on the Internet , the Apache log4j , and continued with a full blown cyber warfare from the Russia-Ukraine war .”
As business activity is slowly picking up , what should CIOs prioritise in 2022 as they chart the way forward post the COVID-19 pandemic ?
Emile Abou Saleh , Regional Director , Middle East and Africa , Proofpoint , said CIOs must be prepared for threats emerging from a hybrid workforce .
THE STATE OF THE CIO IN 2022 IS ONE OF RE-EVALUATION . CIOS ARE CURRENTLY RE-EVALUATING THE DECISIONS TAKEN OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS AND , AS A RESULT , FACE VARIED CHALLENGES .
Especially in the MEA region , there is an acute need to empower more youth with digital skills and prepare them for how emerging technologies will shape the future society . The CIO plays a key role in nurturing new talent and reskilling the current workforce through changes in the organisational culture , processes , systems , and applications .
“ In this period of ‘ The Great Resignation ,’ the CIO ’ s ability to adopt effective technology applications and productive collaboration strategies for the workforce makes a significant difference in the battle for talent ,” he said .
Abdoush said regarding sustainability , there has never been a more vital moment for the C-suite to embrace sustainability as a core aspect of the enterprise .
“ It ’ s clear that environmentally minded organisations are set up for long-term success – and the time to act is now ,” he said .
According to a recent IBM study , more than half ( 52 %) of CEOs in MEA regard increasing sustainability as one of the highest priorities for their organisation in the next two to three years .
“ Most organisations are in the process of defining their sustainability metrics or intend to do so soon . This reflects the very real challenge faced by companies to measure sustainability results . Turning data from disparate sources into analytical outcomes requires interoperability and ease of moving data between organisations and systems , which the CIO is ideally positioned to do ,” he said .
At VMware , Singh said cloud providers and managed service partners are prioritising how they assist
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