Dubai: The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) has announced that it foiled as many as 2,372,028 cyberattacks that targeted online portals of the G20 summit, which concluded on Sunday, local media reported.
The authority said it has successfully dealt with a huge number of cyber threats perpetrated by hackers from unnamed entities.
Eng. Hussam Al Dhobyani, executive director of information security at SDAIA, said that these cyberattacks were repelled on Boroog, the government video conference platform, through the special protection systems that it had developed.
He noted the number of security alerts that were dealt through the Security Operations Centre stood at 28 while the security incidents that occurred as a result of this type of attack was zero.
Al Dhobyani declined to disclose the sources of the attack, but Riyadh has in the past pointed the finger of blame for this type of cyber sabotage at the Iranian regime.
Also, media affiliated with Qatar reportedly focused their negative propaganda against Saudi Arabia’s efforts to organise the G20 summit in an exceptional manner in extremely complex circumstances brought about by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
A number of leaders who attended the summit expressed their appreciation of the Kingdom’s extraordinary effort in making the summit a resounding success, and they included Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of Doha.
Erdogan congratulated Riyadh for its success in leading the summit in the year of its presidency, before handing the presidency over to Italy on Sunday.
Riyadh does not deny that it has been exposed to security risks in the past, but Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said in the context of his talk about his country’s achievements in recent years that the Kingdom was able to contain terrorism after making major headway in combating it.
SDAIA was successful in managing and operating Boroog for the coverage of G20 Summit. Boroog is a secure video conferencing platform managed and operated by SDAIA through one of its executive arms — the National Information Centre.
