About 61% of the attacks also involve operational technology, Tenable report shows.
Dubai: As cybercriminals continue their relentless attacks, 95% of Saudi Arabian organisations have experienced a business-impacting cyberattack in the past 12 months.
According to a study conducted by cyber exposure company Tenable, 85% of respondents in Saudi Arabia have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of business-impacting cyberattacks over the past two years.
Unfortunately, these attacks had damaging effects, with organisations reporting loss of customer and/or employee data (41%), ransomware payments (37%) and financial loss or theft (35%).
The report showed that about 61% of the security leaders in Saudi Arabia said that the attacks also involved operational technology (OT). Only four out of 10 of local security leaders say they can answer the fundamental question, “How secure, or at risk, are we?” with a high level of confidence, despite the prevalence of business-impacting cyberattacks.
Looking at global respondents, fewer than 50% of security leaders said they are framing cybersecurity threats within the context of a specific business risk.
For example, though 96% of respondents had developed response strategies to the Covid-19 pandemic, 75% of business and security leaders admitted their response strategies were only “somewhat” aligned.
Work hand-in-hand
In the future, Renaud Deraison, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Tenable, said that there will be two kinds of CISO – those who align themselves directly with the business and everyone else.
The only way to thrive in this era of digital acceleration is to bring cyber into every business question, decision and investment, he said.
“We believe this study shows that forward-leaning organizations view cybersecurity strategy as essential to innovation and that when security and the business work hand-in-glove, the results can be transformational,” he said.
The report showed that organisations with security and business leaders who are aligned in measuring and managing cybersecurity as a strategic business risk deliver demonstrable results are eight times more likely to be highly confident in their ability to report on their organisations’ level of security or risk while 90% are very or completely confident in their ability to demonstrate that cybersecurity investments are positively impacting business performance compared with 55% of their siloed counterparts.
UAE e-commerce startup seeks to spread wings across Middle East and North Africa.
Dubai: UAE-based eyewear e-commerce player – eyewa – has raised a pre-series B bridge round of $2.5 million from Wamda Capital, EQ2 Ventures and Nuwa Capital.
This is eyewa’s third funding round, it comes hard-on-the-heels of a mid-2019 Series A round of $7.5million and $1.1 million in a seed round in 2018.
In the span of three years, eyewa has raised a capital of $11.1 million, demonstrating the tech startup’s growth and scalability potential as well as investor confidence in its business model.
It is the largest online eyewear retailer in UAE and Saudi Arabia and saw its business double during the lockdown as many customers switched their shopping habits away from the malls and stores towards the convenience and safety of online shopping.
Unique portfolio
Eyewa co-founder and co-CEO Anass Boumediene said, “eyewa has seen exponential growth over the last year by making eyewear more accessible in our region. We offer a unique portfolio of trendy eyewear products at an affordable price and a great online shopping experience, solving a big pain point for our customers.”
Eyewa will leverage the additional capital to double down on the rapid expansion, e-commerce has witnessed during the pandemic and build new capabilities to further strengthen its position in the online eyewear space in the MENA region.
Mehdi Oudghiri, co-founder and co-CEO added, “These funds will allow us to accelerate our disruption of MENA’s eyewear retail sector through the implementation of innovative tech solutions, expanding our product portfolio and offer best in class customer service.”
Last year, eyewa was selected as one of the top 100 Arab startups by the World Economic Forum for its contribution to the region’s digital transformation.
Growth opportunity
“The strong resilience and consistent performance demonstrated by eyewa’s founders and team over the last few months speak to the company’s immense potential to lead over the coming years. The founders’ response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak does not fall short of efficiency and reassures our confidence in eyewa as a unique e-commerce platform that continuously seizes market opportunities and will only continue to grow and enhance the user experience across the Mena region,” said Fadi Ghandour, Executive Chairman of Wamda.
Patrick Thiriet, CEO of EQ2 Ventures, said, “Ever since it was launched by Anass and Mehdi, eyewa has been a role model for the MENA innovation ecosystem. Its talented, dedicated team keeps on finding ways to better serve consumers’ needs, raising the bar for all players in the eyewear market. We are, more than ever, proud to be part of their journey.”
“We launched Nuwa Capital with a singular goal, to back and support the region’s most remarkable founders. This investment in eyewa is the very first step in a wider investment thesis that looks to deliver on this promise, and we are deeply excited to start realizing the vision of Nuwa Capital through our partnership with eyewa’s founders Anass and Mehdi,” said Nuwa Capital’s Managing Partner Khaled Talhouni.
Intensifying urban mobility challenges emphasise need for an overhaul of public transport services.
Dubai: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely to benefit the most in the region from autonomous mobility-on-demand (AMoD), with the adoption of AVs and robo-shuttles to rejuvenate public transport services.
Although several new mobility solutions are poised to address issues such as mounting urban mobility challenges, congestion, carbon emissions, space, and road accidents beyond 2030, determining which solutions to adopt for each city has been unclear until now, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group.
The report, titled ‘Can Self-Driving Cars Stop the Urban Mobility Meltdown,’ illustrates how emerging mobility solutions will benefit some metropolises more than others depending on the suitability and mobility ecosystem of each individual city.
“Many cities, including Riyadh and Dubai, have been grappling with transportation-related issues on multiple fronts, and AMoD solutions could help tackle these challenges,” said Giovanni Moscatelli, managing director and partner, BCG.
“We anticipate around half of AVs alone will be commercial vehicles instead of privately owned, which would deliver greater convenience than conventional mass transit options do.”
As per BCG and HSG research, the major obstacle facing Saudi and the UAE is comparatively new and developing public transport systems, which leads to higher congestion in metropolitan areas.
Sophisticated simulation tool
Riyadh and Dubai’s population is currently over seven million and three million, respectively, and rising every year – emphasizing the underlying need to introduce sustainable public transportation systems.
To investigate the impact of AMoD solutions on mobility ecosystems in the future, BCG and HSG developed a sophisticated simulation tool to analyze the technology’s effects over time concerning traffic volume, road fatalities, transportation costs, total parking space, energy consumptions, and journey times.
As a first step, five city archetypes were identified – Highly compact middleweight, Car-centric giant, Prosperous innovation center, Developing urban powerhouse, and High-density megacity.
Crucially, Riyadh and Dubai have both been placed in the Car-centric giant category as they that have large populations but very low density.
Car-centric giants such as Riyadh and Dubai, which are spread out and have developing public transportation systems, would benefit from robo-shuttles and AVs more than any other scenario.
As these would replace private cars, BCG and HSG have concluded that annual fatalities and total parking areas would decline by 37 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.
Traffic volume would drop by four percent, energy consumption by 12 per cent, and transportation costs by 13 per cent, while journey times would also decrease by 3 percent.
Sustainable transportation systems
At the same time, journeys per year in terms of private cars and public transit would decrease by 27 per cent and two per cent, respectively, when compared to current and projected future modal splits – while robo-taxi’s and robo-pods each account for 11 percent of trips annually in the forecasted model.
However, while some automakers and tech companies plan to launch AVs by the mid-2020s, it will most likely take cities several more years to fully prepare for them – meaning such benefits will not come to fruition until the early 2030s.
Both Riyadh and Dubai stand to capitalize, and the development of AVs could make their respective urban environments greener, more flexible, and help support sustainable transportation systems.
Edoardo Geraci
“AVs, including robo-shuttles and robo-taxis, are suitable for Riyadh and Dubai, and the onus is on planners to conduct and continue conducting pilot projects – using policy measures such as dedicated lines, easy availability, price advantages, and good user experiences to promote their uptake,” said Edoardo Geraci, who works on the Future of Mobility for BCG Middle East.
“Mass transit systems in car-centric giants tend to be subpar, thus AMoD solutions will have to be extremely convenient and embedded into a wider digital ecosystem to convince commuters to dispose of their private vehicles,” complemented Ingmar Schaefer a core team member of the BCG automotive and mobility practice.
To investigate the impact of AMoD solutions on mobility ecosystems in the future, BCG and HSG developed a sophisticated simulation tool to analyze the technology’s effects over time concerning traffic volume, road fatalities, transportation costs, total parking space, energy consumptions, and journey times.
As a first step, five city archetypes were identified – Highly compact middleweight, Car-centric giant, Prosperous innovation center, Developing urban powerhouse, and High-density megacity.
Crucially, Riyadh and Dubai have both been placed in the Car-centric giant category as they that have large populations but very low density.
Benefits
Car-centric giants such as Riyadh and Dubai, which are spread out and have developing public transportation systems, would benefit from robo-shuttles and AVs more than any other scenario.
As these would replace private cars, BCG and HSG have concluded that annual fatalities and total parking areas would decline by 37 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.
Traffic volume would drop by four per cent, energy consumption by 12 percent, and transportation costs by 13 per cent, while journey times would also decrease by 3 per cent.
Ingmar Schaefer
At the same time, journeys per year in terms of private cars and public transit would decrease by 27 per cent and two per cent, respectively, when compared to current and projected future modal splits – while robo-taxi’s and robo-pods each account for 11 percent of trips annually in the forecasted model.
However, while some automakers and tech companies plan to launch AVs by the mid-2020s, it will most likely take cities several more years to fully prepare for them – meaning such benefits will not come to fruition until the early 2030s.
Both Riyadh and Dubai stand to capitalize, and the development of AVs could make their respective urban environments greener, more flexible, and help support sustainable transportation systems.
“AVs, including robo-shuttles and robo-taxis, are suitable for Riyadh and Dubai, and the onus is on planners to conduct and continue conducting pilot projects – using policy measures such as dedicated lines, easy availability, price advantages, and good user experiences to promote their uptake,” said Edoardo Geraci, who works on the Future of Mobility for BCG Middle East.
“Mass transit systems in car-centric giants tend to be subpar, thus AMoD solutions will have to be extremely convenient and embedded into a wider digital ecosystem to convince commuters to dispose of their private vehicles,” complemented Ingmar Schaefer a core team member of the BCG automotive and mobility practice.
Coordinated effort to boost operational and cost efficiency
Dubai: UAE-based Pure Harvest Smart Farms has commissioned Dutch specialist contractor Bom Group to build its high-tech farms as it expands its footprint in the region.
As part of this partnership, Bom Group will build Pure Harvest’s high-tech farms across the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia simultaneously in a coordinated effort for operational and cost-efficiency.
“We have a long-standing relationship with the leadership team at Bom Group that spans several years. As a leader in high-tech farming in the region, we are able to leverage our proprietary design insights and years of production data together with Bom Group to build climate-controlled greenhouses with capabilities to offer year-round, locally and sustainably grown fresh fruits and vegetables with efficient use of resources,” Sky Kurtz, Founder and CEO of Pure Harvest Smart Farms, said.
Pure Harvest’s system was specifically engineered to address the harsh climates of the Arabian Gulf region and allowed the company to be one of the first to produce year-round, premium quality tomatoes at a commercial scale.
With a mission to provide food security, reduce food import dependency, improve food quality, nutritional content, and variety in the region, Pure Harvest’s solution has positioned it as a pioneer of high-yielding, year-round, local production of fresh fruits and vegetables within the GCC region.
“We are now in a position to accelerate the development and market penetration of our innovative Agtech solutions and tapping into the expertise of the Bom Group will help us to achieve our growth aspirations. We believe that our solutions and capabilities will accelerate the adoption of technology for food production in the region, impacting food security, economic diversification and sustainability on a large scale,” Kurtz said.
John Meijer, Commercial Director, Bom Group, said that sustainable and environmentally-conscious practices are at the core of how we build, and “we are delighted to lend our global experience and knowledge as Pure Harvest expands in the region.”
The combined footprint of both projects in the UAE and Saudi Arabia is roughly 120,000 square metres and will produce a wide variety of high quality and safe tomatoes and leafy greens.
Engineering and construction works have already begun with a targeted completion in the first quarter of next year.
Global public cloud infrastructure market grows 37.3% to $44.5b in 2019, Gartner says
Bengaluru: Even though Amazon Web Services (AWS) still maintains its grip on the public cloud infrastructure market, its dominance waned slightly between 2018 and 2019 as Microsoft and Google started to flex muscles.
According to research firm Gartner, AWS earned about $20 billion in IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) cloud revenue in 2019, leading with a 45% market share compared to 47.9% in 2018, followed by Microsoft Azure with $8 billion and 17.9% market share in 2019 (15.6% market share in 2018), Alibaba with $4 billion and 9.1% market share ($2.5 billion and 7.7% in 2018) and Google with $2.4 billion and 5.3% market share ($1.3 billion and 4.1% in 2018).
Microsoft’s IaaS offering grew 57.8% year on year, using its reach and bundling its platform with other Microsoft products and cloud providers to drive adoption.
China market
Microsoft doesn’t break out revenue for its Azure cloud business but Gartner estimated the company’s cloud infrastructure revenues in 2019, with more than half of its revenue coming from North America.
Tencent, the fifth biggest cloud infrastructure provider, market share increased from 1.9% market share to $2.8 billion in 2019.
Tencent is the second largest provider of cloud services in China, after Alibaba.
Gartner predicted that Chinese providers such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei would continue to gain traction as the market matured, and market share between providers eroded as a result.
“It will also be hard for other providers, such as the North America-based cloud providers, to enter the China market given the country’s highly regulated market,” Sid Nag, Research Vice-President at Gartner, said.
Oracle: A player to watch
The fastest growth rates were achieved by Tencent with 100%, followed by Google with 80%, Alibaba Cloud with 62.4% and Microsoft with 57.8%.
In 2019, the top five IaaS providers accounted for 80 per cent of the market, up from 77 per cent in 2018.
The overall IaaS public cloud service market grew to $44.5 billion in 2019, up 37.3% year-on-year.
Industry experts said that Oracle, with its second-generation cloud infrastructure, will be a formidable player to watch as they have won new customers and have attracted customers from other leading platforms.
Nag said that cloud technology had demonstrated its value for companies during this time, meaning IT leaders would be in no hurry to slow investment in scaling out additional capacity and capabilities to their cloud infrastructure.
“When enterprises were compelled to move their applications to the public cloud as a result of the pandemic, they realised the true benefits of public cloud and it is unlikely that they will change course,” said Nag.
“In the recovery and rebound phase, CIOs are recognising that they don’t need to bring workloads back on premises, which will further increase cloud spending and drive new applications around cloud-hosted collaboration that incorporate emerging technologies such as virtual reality and immersive video experiences.”
At the end of the day, she said that each of these technologies require a scalable, elastic and high-capacity infrastructure platform like public Cloud IaaS, which is why the market witnessed strong growth.
Gartner predicts that more than 80 per cent of the organisations will adopt or have adopted the multi-cloud approach by the end of the year.
Dubai: NutriCal, food data intelligence software, launches in the UAE with a vision to equip food businesses with pertinent information they can use to attract and retain customers.
With dynamically changing trends in the consumer preferences and increased competition in the food industry, the recipe management software serves as a beneficial and differentiating tool.
NutriCal can be easily integrated by restauants, cloud kitchens, food delivery companies, aggregators, food manufacturers and brands.
The web portal provides automatically generated nutritional fact labels as per FDA guidelines in English and Arabic, macros in the menu and break-up of each of the recipes on the menu.
The system has data and intelligence of over 25,000 ingredients from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other international databases with the capability of being integrated into the business’s existing tech platforms such as websites and POS systems.
“Our long-term vision at NutriCal is to be able to match the consumer’s preferences to a business’s food products and recipes. Ultimately, we want every food business to attract customers and increase revenue as their consumers are able to make a satisfactory and informed decision about the food they consume,” Soniya Ashar, Founder, NutriCal, said.
She said that they have plans to expand its business line into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“We see immense opportunity and potential in the GCC region and would want to be instrumental in bringing about a positive change in the offerings the food industry has to offer,” she said.
