Cybersecurity in the Middle East is reaching a crucial moment. As countries advance their digital initiatives, the potential for cyber threats is increasing at a pace that many organizations struggle to manage. Maher Jadallah, Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa at Tenable, advocates for a coordinated and proactive strategy. In his discussion with Gulf Business, he outlines how Tenable is enabling local businesses to achieve comprehensive visibility across their IT, cloud, and operational technology systems, manage fragmentation, and prepare for a dynamic threat environment influenced by AI and digital integration.
Transforming Cybersecurity from Reactive to Proactive Management in the Middle East
Tenable is assisting organizations in the Middle East in making a strategic transition from merely responding to security threats to adopting a proactive exposure management framework. This shift is critical as technology plays a pivotal role in realizing the Dubai Economic Agenda “D33” and Saudi Vision 2030. With the acceleration of digital transformation, the risks associated with cyber exposure also rise.
Addressing these challenges necessitates a departure from traditional security methods. The focus should be on three main areas: Unified Visibility; Risk Prioritization; and Actionable Intelligence.
- First, organizations need an ongoing and comprehensive view of every asset, spanning from conventional IT settings to cloud infrastructure, AI operations, and operational technology (OT).
- Second, they must identify and prioritize not only specific vulnerabilities but also the critical attack vectors that present the highest risk to their operations.
- Finally, these risks must be articulated into clear, measurable data that security teams and management can utilize to inform decisive funding and resource allocation.
By adopting this cohesive approach, organizations can pursue their national digital goals with confidence, consistently reducing their critical cyber vulnerabilities.
Addressing the Security Challenges of Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments
Organizations in the Middle East need to tackle the issues arising from fragmented infrastructures by implementing a cohesive exposure management strategy. According to Tenable’s recent report, Cloud and AI Security 2025, 82 percent of businesses operate hybrid environments and 63 percent use multiple cloud service providers, leading to gaps and blind spots in security. This fragmentation is particularly concerning given the importance of technology in achieving the objectives of both the Dubai Economic Agenda “D33” and Saudi Vision 2030. As digital transformations accelerate, so do the complexities and potential risks.
To secure these diverse environments, businesses must integrate visibility into a single, ongoing overview. They should employ advanced tools to identify and map the logical attack paths that extend across various security domains, linking vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructures with on-premises systems. It is essential to focus on addressing vulnerabilities that attackers are most likely to exploit, such as critical misconfigurations and excessive privileges.
This unified, strategic framework allows organizations to move from defensiveness to a proactive and anticipatory stance, ensuring that their security capabilities evolve in tandem with their digital advancements.
The Urgency for Operational Technology Security in the Face of Rising Cyber Threats
The demand for dedicated Operational Technology (OT) security solutions has become critically urgent in the Middle East. The rapid digital transformation across vital sectors such as oil and gas, manufacturing, and utilities supports ambitious undertakings like the Dubai Economic Agenda “D33” and Saudi Vision 2030. Nonetheless, this acceleration has resulted in the convergence of IT and OT networks, exposing previously isolated industrial control systems to a growing array of cyber threats that jeopardize these national initiatives.
Cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure can have serious real-world repercussions, including physical damage, interruption of essential services, and substantial regulatory penalties. To combat these risks, organizations must establish a comprehensive security framework that delivers three primary objectives: thorough situational awareness across all connected OT assets; a unified risk context that links IT vulnerabilities to potential threats in OT systems; and effective process integration to foster collaboration between IT and OT teams.
A comprehensive OT security strategy is not merely a precaution; it is an operational necessity for ensuring safety, continuity, and the achievement of the region’s long-term developmental goals.
Current Global and Regional Cybersecurity Trends and Tenable’s Response
There are two significant trends shaping the region’s cybersecurity landscape: the ongoing problem of fragmentation and the disruptive influence of AI. These trends unfold within the context of the region’s national aspirations as seen in “D33” and Saudi Vision 2030, where every new cyber vulnerability poses substantial risks.
The first trend is fragmentation. Today’s attack surface is expansive, spanning IT, multi-cloud, OT, and identity systems. The use of numerous disjointed security tools often exacerbates these challenges, creating more confusion than clarity. Organizations can overcome this by embracing a unified exposure management approach that shifts from traditional point-in-time assessments to a singular, continuous understanding of risk across the entire environment, allowing security teams to make informed decisions.
The second trend focuses on AI as a dual-use technology. While attackers exploit generative AI to execute faster and more sophisticated attacks, defenders are countering by leveraging AI insights to evolve from a reactive to a proactive and preventive security posture. This approach enables security teams to analyze large datasets, pinpoint potential attack vectors, and address critical vulnerabilities before they can impact the foundational digital efforts required for the region’s ambitious national objectives.