< PreviousVectra is founded, R&D begins Vectra se- cures $25M VC investment ‘14‘10First product publicly released ‘14North Ameri- can opera- tions commence ‘14 What is your company’s history-including Middle East History? Vectra was founded in San Jose, California, in late 2010, and we released our initial product in 2014. Since then, we’ve had multiple rounds of investment, the most recent being a $100M Series E in June 2019. These investments have provided the resources to drive continued research, innovation, and product development, that have served as the foundation of our rapid growth in the network detection and response (NDR) space. We began our Middle East operations in early 2018 and since then, we have grown our partner network and customer base substantially. Today, we are helping numerous organisations across the GCC, North Africa, and Turkey, to detect and respond to cyberattacks at speed and scale. What is your company’s core competence? Vectra’s capabilities and strength lie in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and respond to cyberattacks in cloud, data centre and enterprise infrastructures in real-time—while empowering security analysts Vectra expands in Europe Middle East and Africa region MILESTONES IN VECTRA’S HISTORY Company> Vectra Company type> Cybersecurity Ammar Enaya, regional director, METNA, Vectra Company profile ‘17 to perform conclusive incident investigations and AI-assisted threat hunting. Our core team consists of threat researchers, data scientists, security engineers, and UI designers. We are passionate and committed to making a difference in a world where cybersecurity is of paramount concern. What are some of the trends impacting your sector? As nations and organisations in our region increasingly become digital enterprises, the protection of data, services, and infrastructure has become a high priority. The provision of local cloud services will be a core contributor to many digital transformations too. These factors are drivers that will see around US$1.9B spent on enterprise information security in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region this year. Security vulnerabilities plague cloud architectures, and The SANS Institute says that one out of five businesses were hit by unauthorised access to their cloud environments in the past year. As more enterprises turn to the cloud for grander operational scale and cost efficiencies, it’s critical to address these // COMPANY PROFILE / VECTRA // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 40 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / JANUARY 2020 /The Cognito Recall solution is launched ‘18Cognito Stream is launched AWS and Az- ure support announced Vectra launches in Asia Pacific Vectra launches in the Middle East region ‘18‘19‘19‘19 security vulnerabilities, so businesses can innovate, free from external threats. Couple this with a significant cybersecurity human resource and skills gap, and we have a market opportunity to address strategic security challenges for our customers through automation of threat detection and response. Discuss the latest solutions from your company and the impact you see in the market Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Vectra and its flagship Cognito threat detection and response platform enables organisations to automatically detect and respond quickly to hidden cyber attacks in the cloud, datacentre and enterprise environments. The Cognito platform consists of Cognito Stream, Cognito Detect and Cognito Recall. Cognito Stream delivers network metadata enriched with security insights in Zeek (formally Bro) format to data lakes and security information and event management (SIEM) applications without the complexity, constant tuning and scale limitation of the open-source Zeek platform. Cognito Recall is an investigative workbench that enables AI-assisted threat hunting and conclusive incident investigations while Cognito Detect automates the real-time detection of hidden attackers from cloud and data centre workloads to user and internet- of-things (IoT) devices. The genesis of the Cognito platform is based on a simple principle for finding hidden threats - use an authoritative source of data and seek out the fundamental threat behaviours that cybercriminals can’t avoid when they carry out an attack. To do this, the Cognito platform relies on the only source of truth during a cyberattack – infrastructure traffic. Only traffic in cloud, data centre and enterprise environments reveals the truth with fidelity and independence. Low-fidelity perimeter security only shows what you’ve already seen, not the hidden attacks that were missed. The Cognito platform delivers a more efficient way of analysing infrastructure traffic at scale. Instead of traditional payload inspection, it uses AI, machine learning and behavioural traffic analysis to expose the fundamental behaviours of attackers as they spy, spread, and steal – even in encrypted traffic. What is your presence in the Middle East? We’re active across the GCC, North Africa and up into Turkey. We have a growing number of client engagement managers, consulting engineers, customer success professionals, and channel partner managers. The region also has dedicated sales development resources, marketing, and 24/7 support. Our reach is further extended by our distributors and value-added resellers who provide system integrations and additional security services. Describe some of your biggest successes in the region We have secured some of Vectra’s largest deployments from clients in our area. We’ve quickly established Vectra as a leader in our particular security market segment. That recognition has also been validated by our network of channel partners who have recognised the value our Cognito NDR platform provides for them and their customers. What are your regional goals for the rest of the year and beyond? Vectra is rapidly expanding in the region, and I have and confidence that this growth will continue in our region. // COMPANY PROFILE / VECTRA // JANUARY 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 41// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /Published and Copyright © 2020 ITP MEDIA GROUP FZ-LLC. MEDIA PO Box 500024, Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 444 3000 www.itp.com Offices in Abu Dhabi. 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The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the reader’s particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review. Five minutes with… Sanmeet Kochhar, REGIONAL HEAD FOR HMD GLOBAL MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA AND INDIA 1 What is your current role in the ICT industry in the Middle East and what are your responsibilities? I am the regional head for HMD Global in the Middle East, North Africa and India, so I lead the business in these markets. This means that I am responsible for manag- ing the day-to-day operations, driving our partners’ collaborations and engagements, and for ensuring that our customers get the best experience when they use their Nokia smartphones. HMD Global is a Finnish mobile phone company, which took over the mobile phone business of Nokia. HMD Global began marketing phones under the Nokia brand in December 2016. The company has exclusive rights to the Nokia brand for mo- bile phones through a licensing agreement. 2 What is the best thing about your job? The best thing about my job is that I am driving change in a dynamic environment, so there’s always some- thing new and exciting to look forward to every day. Moreover, the markets that I manage are witnessing rapid growth, so there is still an opportunity to learn something new or manage new challenges. 3 How innovative do you think the network industry in the Middle East is and how can it improve? The network industry in the Middle East is growing, and 5G will drive innovation in 2020. Our focus is to deliver affordable phones that support 5G. Increasingly, the network industry is led by artificial intelligence and machine learn- ing through software. But at the same time, the hardware is getting commoditised. 4 What are the upcoming trends or products in your sector? As mentioned previously, the hardware is increasingly getting commoditised. While consumers still want smartphones with good hardware, it is software that defines a smartphone both from feature and function perspectives. The diffrentiating factor is in what the software can offer to make that hardware go further. Increasingly, we are also seeing that people are concerned about the security of their data. Therefore, brands must enable a seamless experience for their customers while ensuring their privacy. 5 Does your company utilise virtualisation or cloud computing? Nokia mobile devices use Google services like Google photos on our devices, which inherently rely on cloud computing. 6 What are your out-of- office hobbies? I like to play badminton and table tennis. I also enjoy listening to music. Top 5 Favourite film? A Few Good Men iOS or Android? Android Favourite gadget? My Nokia 7.2 Favourite band/ musician? Bryan Adams Favourite book? The Godfather by Mario Puzo // FIVE MINUTES / SANMEET KOCHHAR // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 42 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / JANUARY 2020 /4th Edition ORGANISED BY Book your place now | www.dgcgames.com For more information Mr Habib Chams Dubai +971588152161 Beirut +961 76 704 978 habib.chams@itp.com www.dgcgames.com Connecting the Global Game Industry FOUR SHOWS IN ONE NEW SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED Anna Baumann Rogue Raheel Iqbal Game Storm Studios Tomislav Mihailov Rogue Robert Hammond Kids Clever Phil Aram Evil Geniuses Sahar Salama TPay Moritz Maurer Grid Barıs Özistek Netmarble Marwan Alzaroun Dubai Blockchain Center Karim Ibrahim Robocom VR 500+ Companies 100+ Speakers C Level Delegates 35 Countries 1-2 APRIL 2020 Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE The MENA Region’s #1 Business Event for the Digital Games Industry DGC Ads 2020 Press Ad 205x275 V2.indd 117/12/2019 18:46NETWORK TRAFFIC SECURITY ANALYTICS Real-time detection of security incidents based on A I and adv anced beha vior analytics Automated triage of security incidents and recommended response actions Complete visibility across all de vices in the environment, including IoT and B Y OD Ask for a free demo on: www .bitdefender.com/business YOU COULD BE TARGET OF AN ADVANCED ATTACK! 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