"There are no government strategies for IT securities in the Middle East," said Anas Chibib, a managing director of Berlin-based Advanced German Technologies (AGT) at GITEX, the region's largest annual hi-tech trade show taking place this week at the Dubai International Exhibition Center. "Political leaders do not acknowledge how serious the problem is and there is no awareness whatsoever on to how to implement IT security in daily life," he added.
Chibib said the region is also in desperate need of e-commerce laws, enforcement mechanisms and a clear policy toward hacking, which is currently not criminalized or directly penalized, he said. National governments, he claimed, spend less than 5 percent of IT budgets on security.
"We are seeing a lot of e-government initiatives but nothing on security," he said.
Chbib, a Syrian and also the head of AGT Middle East, said cyber attacks have already created significant financial losses in the region, but said he could not specify the names of corporations that had been affected for fear of copy-cat behavior.
In recent weeks, the computer network for a national airline had been disrupted for 3 hours causing dozens of flight cancellations, while a regional GSM operator recorded losses of over $1 million for a four-hour lapse in service, according to Chbib.
He said AGT, which was founded in 2002, would concentrate on developing its business in the Middle East, where industry investments are expected to grow 30 percent annually reaching $162 million by 2007, according to IDC.
The leading market analyst says worldwide spending on security and business continuity will grow twice as fast as IT spending over the coming years, reaching more than $116 billion by 2007.
AGT has offices in Bahrain, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia, but Chibib admits the regional and worldwide security industry is dominated by US companies, with European firms currently vying for only 10 percent of market share.
But he expects that balance to shift this year due to the growing popularity of open-source systems which AGT and other European players are promoting. At GITEX, the firm is showcasing GSMK's CryptoPhone, a mobile unit that uses open source code to encrypt telephone calls. It is one of some 40 products AGT is supplying to core markets in Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
AGT partner APSEC is looking to enter the so-called smart card industry in the Middle East, which is experiencing 100 percent growth in Europe according to APSEC CEO Klaus-Peter Breitenbach.
The cards can boost personal information stored on ID and credit cards and can also be used to access hard drives. The German government plans to issue some 35 million employee identification "job cards" over the next several years, Breitenbach said.
"I expect the same trend to continue outside Europe," he said.
Chebib said AGT is considering creating an IT security research center in the Middle East to increase awareness about the critical sector in the region.
"We have some good plans and we hope governments will support us and be open minded enough to see IT security as a serious problem," he said.
Quelle: MENAFN, 07.10.2004
