Countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have been labelled as prime targets for cyber-criminals by information technology experts. Although awareness about cyber theft is growing in the GCC, so is the frequency of cyber-attacks as criminals are using more sophisticated ways to carry out thefts and traditional prevention tools are no longer sufficiently effective. The cost to cure data breaches in the GCC has grown to over US$5M. Speaking at the e-Crime and Information Security Congress in Abu Dhabi, Harry Sverdlove, the chief technology officer at Bit9+Carbon Black in the United States, a firm that specialises in protecting network security, said that robust measures need to be applied to prevent cyber theft. Sverdlove credits the United Arab Emirates with taking a strong stand in the application of preventive methods to counter cyber theft attacks. (gulfnews.com; 15 September 2014)
