Injazat opens cyber security centre in Abu Dhabi to develop next-generation technologies

Opened in the first quarter, the centre is offering services to Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, its group of companies and various other entities

Injazat said it has hired highly-skilled security analysts and engineers to boost the operations of the centre.Courtesy Injazat

Injazat, a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, opened a Cyber Fusion Centre in Abu Dhabi, expanding its cyber defence abilities and portfolio of services.

The centre will provide Mubadala and its subsidiaries protection against data breaches and will “develop and deploy next-generation cyber capabilities” and solutions in the region and beyond, Khaled Al Melhi, chief executive of the firm, said.

“Injazat has a long history of successfully supporting the critical and highly visible entities of the Abu Dhabi government,” Mr Melhi said.

Opened in the first quarter of this year, Injazat said that the centre would use behaviour analytics and machine learning to detect potential threats in early stages and neutralise them promptly. It is also using an artificial intelligence-based recommendation engine to take action to counter cyber threats based on previous behaviour patterns to reduce response times.

The first phase of the project saw many major companies come on-board while an additional eight companies are scheduled to begin receiving services within this year, the data systems provider said without revealing the total number of clients it has so far.

Injazat is planning to "expand its services to the wider UAE market" in the third quarter of this year.

With the launch of this centre, Injazat is bringing its customers’ information technology security operations under one roof, thereby providing a “holistic overview of processes for increased efficiency and awareness”, said Mr Melhi.

More than half of Middle East organisations are not using behavioural analytics to identify and prevent cyber attacks, even though 90 per cent of them said this is a crucial step to effectively stop breaches, US cyber security company Forcepoint revealed in a survey last September.

Behavioural analytics tools analyse systems habits of users and then apply algorithms to weed out threats.

By adopting elements such as early threat detection, intelligence sharing and analysis, the centre “empowers businesses to operate with greater awareness and efficiency”, Injazat added.

Gulf countries continue to be attractive to cyber criminals, thanks to their growing digital footprint.

The average cost of data breaches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia was $5.9 million (Dh21.65m) in 2019, a 12.4 per cent year-on-year increase, according to a report by IBM Security. This is second only to the US, which has the highest total average cost per data breach of $8.19m