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Mr. Mohamed Youssef will join Ibento Global’s CyberX Qatar Summit (Virtual Edition), which is taking place on 7-8 June’2021. We took the opportunity to interview and ask him some questions about his views on ICS/OT security. Here are some of his thoughts:

• What do organizations need to be concerned about in bringing together the digital transformation in terms of cyber security ?

Digital transformation involve more connectivity and additional systems interfaces, that means increasing of the size of the cyber-attack surface, and in the context of critical infrastructure operational environments such as in Electricity and Water, Nuclear, Oil and Gas, Transportation Rail and Aviation, and Industrial sectors which depends on operational systems such as but not limited to SCADA, DCS, PLCs, RTUs, Smart Metering, Signalling, BMS along with the typical IT systems will be subject to further attacks which could cause severe damages to health and safety, operations, reputation of governments and organizations,  huge financial losses. Etc. so ensuring conducting cyber security assessments by qualified experts and building robust and effective cyber security management system (CSMS) is essential step that must be considered prior to or along with the digital transformation initiatives.

• What initiatives/projects are on the horizon for your team in 2021?

I will focus in answering this question on projects that I see in the market especially in the ICS/OT/SCADA environments, so I believe the following projects will continue this year to be seen in the market and in the following years as well:

• ICS/OT Cyber Security Risk Assessments
• Development of Cyber Security policies and procedures
• Cyber Security Awareness
• Deployment of Systems Integrity Check solutions
• Deployment of centralized logging and/or SIEM solutions
• Deployment of DMZs between ICS/OT and Enterprise IT networks
• Deployment of Remote Access solutions
• Deployment of Industrial IDS solutions
• Deployment of Systems Backup/Restore solutions
• Deployment of Identity and Access Management solutions

• Which of the current trends in ICS/OT Security field are of great interest to you?
  
  

I always believe that focusing on the basics and foundations by establishing an effective Cyber Security Management System (CSMS) is essential and more important than thinking of any trends, trends in general would be useful for organizations that are in high maturity stages, but anyway the trend that is of my interest Cyber Threat Intelligence.

• What are you most looking forward to at CyberX Qatar Summit 2021? 

Listening to different points of view and seeing different perspectives, so seeing the views of regulatory bodies, asset owners and public entities, consulting firms, vendors, and integrators. 

Register for #cyberxqatar and enjoy a stellar line-up of cross-industry speakers guaranteed to make you feel inspired and informed. For more information, please email us at Noora Ali at noora.ali@cyberxqatar.com.