My first trip to Saudi Arabia, as Tanium’s Chief Architect for EMEA, to present at an executive cybersecurity leaders roundtable that PwC Middle East hosted with Tanium, its strategic technology alliance partner. Over 20 of the Kingdom’s cybersecurity leaders discussed how to gain visibility and control in an era of fast-paced digital disruption, and how to manage vulnerabilities and emerging threats. PwC’s Simone Vernacchia and Hemant Arora spoke alongside me.
My session, “Endpoint Management and Security Built for a Distributed World”, started from what I called the biggest irony in technology: that we aren’t using effective technology to manage and secure technology. Organisations still rely on manual inventories and layers of tactical point solutions for IT operations, risk and security, and the complexity and cyber threats live in the gaps between them. I drew on PwC’s Digital Trust Insights 2022, in which 75% of C-suite respondents said their companies were unnecessarily complex, and made the case for a converged platform approach, with customer stories including how Salisbury University found and fixed its exposure to Log4Shell.
Presenting in the Kingdom needed a speaking permit on top of the visa. I wrote about the trip, and how it changed my view of the region, in Arabian Insights & Nordic Nostalgia. I gave the talk again at the Dubai roundtable in June.