Dubai: Flies never visit an egg that has no cracks and the internet has many cracks, said Governor Tom Ridge, the first US Secretary of Homeland Security, on Sunday in Dubai.
Ridge, who is also the former Governor of Pennsylvania and the founder and chairman of Ridge Global, a company that provides strategic consulting services to reduce security risks, was speaking at du’s third Cyber Security Conference. Ridge said that with the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), there is going to be a lot more cracks as billions of devices connect to the internet. IoT is defined as the network of devices that are connected to the internet, which can usually be controlled remotely. The flies in this analogy are hackers.
“There are two kinds of organisations, those who have been hacked and know it and those who have been hacked and does not know it,” he said.
Hackers have become sophisticated and have formed organisations (or groups) to steal data. Ridge said that no one is safe from hackers and a collective effort is needed to tackle them.
The primary aim of the event is to support the UAE government in its transformation to a smart government by highlighting information security challenges in smart cities and other national initiatives, among others.
During the conference, key security issues such as Cognitive Security, Security for 5G, Internet of Things, Cloud Security, and Security in the Digital Economy were addressed.
Incidents
Speaking at the event, Osman Sultan, CEO of du, said that the number of cyber security incidents in 2009 was over five million and in 2015 it was over 16 million.
“Lot of us would like to see this kind of growth in other areas of business but that is not the case. We are in the midst of an incredible digital transformation. A transformation that is so rapidly disruptive, so rapidly global, more than any other transformation in the history of mankind,” he said.
He said the technology proliferation and the rate at which it is going brings about many challenges when it comes to meeting cyber security requirements.
“As a telecom provider, we see it as our responsibility to build a coalition with government and nongovernment partners and educate as many entities as we can about cyber security threats and how to mitigate them,” he added.
