As artificial intelligence (AI) drives rapid digital transformation across the Middle East, the region’s cybersecurity landscape is undergoing significant change. Businesses are shifting their focus from solely preventing cyberattacks to developing comprehensive capabilities that include identifying vulnerabilities, prioritizing risks, and rapidly detecting, containing, and recovering from breaches.
The Middle East is experiencing accelerated growth in AI adoption, cloud infrastructure, and interconnected technologies, expanding the digital footprint available to both organisations and potential attackers. Harish Chib, Vice President for Emerging Markets, Middle East & Africa at cybersecurity firm Sophos, noted that AI provides cybercriminals with a strategic advantage. “Attackers have always looked for an edge. Now they’ve got one: AI,” Chib said, explaining that artificial intelligence enhances the sophistication and speed of attacks, automating tasks that previously slowed adversaries.
This rapid expansion in digital assets and infrastructure, while fostering economic growth, also increases exposure to cyber threats. “Everything here is scaling, new infrastructure, more workloads shifting to the cloud, more systems connected to one another than ever before,” Chib observed. “Good for growth, but it also means there’s more for attackers to target.”
Against this backdrop, cybersecurity priorities are evolving. Organisations are increasingly recognizing that fully blocking every intrusion is unrealistic given the complexity and volume of attacks. Instead, the focus is shifting toward cyber resilience—the ability to quickly identify breaches, respond effectively, and recover operations with minimal disruption.
Moses Frost, a SANS Certified Instructor at the SANS Institute, emphasized that resilience depends on human skill and readiness as much as technology. “What matters most is how quickly an organisation detects, responds, and recovers,” he said. “And the ability to do that depends on people, their skills, and their experience under pressure.” Frost underscored the importance of continuous training, noting that cybersecurity expertise must evolve alongside the changing threat landscape.
In line with these perspectives, Kamel Heus, Vice President of Sales for the Middle East and Africa at identity governance firm Saviynt, stressed that organisations should assume breaches will occur. “Prevention alone can’t keep up, so resilience now means assuming compromise,” Heus stated, advocating for strategies that prioritize identity management and adaptive security measures designed to contain damage once an attacker is inside.
As the Middle East continues to invest heavily in digital transformation, these industry leaders assert that cultivating cyber resilience through a combination of advanced technologies, skilled personnel, and proactive risk management will be essential to safeguarding critical assets and sustaining growth in an increasingly complex cyber environment.