Muscat,
The fourth edition of Oman Cybersecurity Conference titled “Defending the Digital World: The Cybersecurity Revolution in the Communications Sector” kicked off today.
The opening ceremony was held under the auspices of Sheikh Ghuson Hilal Al Alawi, Chairman of the State Audit Institution (SAI).
The event is organized by Al Roya newspaper in cooperation with the Cyber Defence Centre, Advanced Cybersecurity Academy and Oman Data Park company.
A documentary titled “Cybersecurity Revolution in the Telecommunications Sector” was presented at the forum. It highlighted challenges and mechanisms for dealing with cybersecurity threats by applying the highest global standards and best practices.
At the outset of the conference, Eng. Badr Ali Al Salhi, Director General of the National Centre for Information Safety, delivered a keynote speech, while Eng. Said Abdullah Al Manthri, CEO of ITHCA Group, presented the conference’s main working paper.
Eng. Maqbool Salim Al Wahaibi, CEO of Oman Data Park, said that, recently, the Sultanate of Oman applied 123 million cybersecurity applications to tackle 417,000 web attacks (that would have cost more than one million US dollars). He pointed out that such an alarming number of attacks actually constituted a 13% decline down from nearly 500,000 confirmed attacks reported in 2019. He attributed this improvement to the high volume of security checks being implemented to protect government websites.
The conference dealt with three main themes. The first, titled “Effective Defences to Achieve Proactivity in the Telecommunications Sector”, was discussed in a working paper presented by Abdullah Al Ghassani, a cybersecurity specialist at Oman Data Park.
The second theme, titled “Information Security and the Zero Trust Model in the Sector”, referred to an instance of practical experience that was outlined in a paper presented by Abdullah Hamoud Al Barwani, General Manager of Omantel’s Corporate Security Unit. Rashid Salim Al Salmi, CEO of Insight Information Security Company, also presented a paper on a security case experience.
A panel discussion elaborated on the third theme of the conference, titled “Towards Framework Provisions for the National Active Defence Strategy”.
