Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – Ransomware developers and cyber criminals getting a hold of sensitive data are among the biggest source of cyber threats in the Middle East, according to Dimitris Raekos who was recently appointed as the region's new General Manager of IT security company ESET. "Organizations mainly receive those threats via email, which make the email server the biggest vulnerability, and the main gate for the malware to get inside an organization," said Raekos in an interview with Saudi Gazette. "With several organizations heavily investing in network level security such as firewalls/IPS/IDS, this area is considered the least vulnerable against unauthorized access," he adds. "However, nothing is 100% secure; a hacker can find a hole to penetrate the network. So organizations should always monitor their assets and running periodic pen-test to assure that optimum security is in place." Ransomware, a type of malware preventing users from accessing their system unless a ransom is paid, is one of the common forms of spam threatening users. Most organizations in the region lack cyber security training and awareness nonetheless. "We still need to spend more efforts in user awareness on threats and cyber security measures," Raekos further said. "Organizations should consider running extensive user awareness campaigns and utilize various technologies available to prevent such malwares penetrating the network from the email gateway." Such solutions include ESET Mail Security solutions that can detect and prevent malwares from the email gateway level. Moreover, spam has changed in format over the years. A common known spam might contain pestering messages or some advertisement but spam emails have evolved from harmless spam to malware infecting spam. "Some of those spams have more threats linking to malware distribution sites including attachments that combines advertising, which are mostly suspicious and illegal products and backdoor/Trojan," he added. ESET was recently named the highest-rated security solutions in spam protection by leading testing authorities. In the antivirus industry, ESET offers solutions varying from endpoint, mobile devices, and several antimalware, antispyware to others such as data encryption, disaster recovery and secure authentication. Asked about future strategies for ESET in the region, Raekos said "driving sales, marketing and service delivery teams to achieve targets and improve the company's technical services, develop robust sales and deliver technical channel training." Offering more value to regional channel partners is also on the agenda through diverse innovative sales approaches focused on "supporting customers with a high-quality service."
