In the GCC, cybersecurity has become a critical priority for organizations of all sizes as cyberattacks have led to financial loss, erosion of customer trust, and long-term reputational damage. 

The region’s cyber threat landscape includes viruses and malware, sophisticated phishing scams, ransomware attacks, and large-scale data breaches. 

According to the State of the Market report by Help AG, GCC organizations have continued and accelerated their investment in cyber defense. 

Additionally, there has been an acceleration in the consolidation of cybersecurity spending, increasing by over 100% in the past year. This is strongly linked to the services business’s growth, as customers are increasingly inclined to consume cybersecurity as a service, demanding clear deliverables, service level agreements (SLAs), key performance indicators (KPIs), and transparent costs.

Investment in managed cyber defense skyrocketed, prompted by the increasing complexity of the digital threat landscape. 

Associated services, such as network detection and response, endpoint detection and response, threat intelligence, digital risk protection, and incident response services, witnessed increased investment. 

This trend suggests that organizations prioritize comprehensive threat management and protection measures, highlighting an increased awareness and proactive approach to cybersecurity threats.

Cloud services have become the preferred choice for many organizations, with a clear shift towards Everything as a Service (EaaS). This transition, encompassing major digital transformation initiatives and endpoint security, reflects the broader adoption of cloud technologies poised to dominate the cybersecurity landscape.

Similarly, the report states that cybersecurity advisory saw a 100+% growth in investments, spurred by growing regulatory compliance requirements, indicating an increasing reliance on expert guidance to navigate these challenges.

The report stated a growth in Secure Services Edge (SSE) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, addressing the need for secure connectivity and uninterrupted service availability.

The report also found that attackers target organizations where it hurts the most: availability, reputation, and customer trust, causing financial losses, operational disruptions, and long-term damage.

Regarding attacks targeted at availability, the report features an in-depth analysis of DDoS attacks in the UAE, highlighting the most significant attack recorded globally targeting the UAE and the most common attack vectors and techniques. 

According to the report, there was a 42% increase in DDoS attacks in the UAE in 2023, with 213,434 incidents. The longest of these attacks lasted over five days, while the most significant attack reached a record-breaking bandwidth of 461.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps).

On the other hand, of nearly 30,000 critical digital risk alerts identified, the dominant digital risk categories were credential theft (49%) and brand abuse (39%). At the same time, data leakage and phishing represented 10% and 1.5% of use cases, respectively.

Additionally, in the past year, the cyber threat landscape was characterized by a growing number of advanced ransomware and double extortion, refined phishing, and application layer attacks.

Organizations’ major risks were often related to human factors, misconfiguration of default credentials, missing patches, cloud security weaknesses, and domain controller vulnerabilities.