The Middle East has long been a developing and advancing region regarding technology and security. In today’s connected world, our increasing dependency on computer systems and mobile devices creates more opportunities for information misuse, theft, and ransomware scams. Despite the risks, connectivity has become essential to consumers, enterprises, and governments, more evident during the pandemic, and that is expected to continue long into the future.
More access by more users and devices creates a seemingly infinite number of potential entry points. As a result, severe vulnerabilities are possible within communications networks, defence systems, industrial IoT deployments, connected cars, and more.
According to Global Market Insights, the Middle East and Africa’s cybersecurity market is expected to reach $2.89bn by 2026 and register a compound annual growth rate of 7.9 percent between 2021 and 2026. Last year, Trend Micro’s Annual Cybersecurity Report for 2021 detailed that over 4 million email threats and more than 6 million URL victim attacks were detected and blocked across Qatar.
To combat cyber attacks and increase citizens’ and residents’ awareness on the dangers of the web, Qatar has continued to carry out effective campaigns, roll out policies and encourage awareness in all areas – private and public sectors. Yesterday, the National Cyber Security Agency disclosed that it had trained more than 15,000 Ministry of Education and Higher Education employees in the cybercrime prevention training programme since its launch.
According to National Cyber Excellence Department Director Dalal Al Aqeedi, beneficiaries of the training programme included 591 trainees from school leaders, 10,175 trainees from teachers, and 2,638 trainees from administrators. She said over 12,000 trainees had passed the programme so far.
Also on the programme, Director of Educational Training and Development Center at the Ministry Hissa Al Aali confirmed that the Ministry is keen on its employees’ participation in the training to ensure high cyber literacy rate among school leaders, teachers, and administrators.
Qatar is rapidly developing its economy, in part by embracing information and communications technology (ICT) as a platform for innovation and prosperity.
ICT adoption is expanding Qatar’s cyberspace, which has become integral to society, government, and businesses. In support of Qatar’s efforts to address current and emerging threats and risks, several strategies have been launched since 2015 to protect the national critical information infrastructure and to provide a safe and secure online environment for the different sectors; the Qatar National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS) was also developed by the National Cyber Security Committee (NCSC).
