Tech News
Securing the Digital Frontier: Rubrik’s Vision for Middle East Cybersecurity
Exclusive Interview with Robert Standing, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Africa & Eastern Europe at Rubrik
Q. With AI being a central theme at GITEX 2024, how does Rubrik integrate AI capabilities into its Security Cloud to enhance data protection and threat detection?
At Rubrik, we’ve recognized that AI is not just a buzzword but a powerful tool for enhancing data protection and cyber resilience. Our Rubrik Security Cloud leverages AI to provide advanced threat detection and data recovery solutions. Specifically, our machine learning algorithms analyze backup snapshots for abnormalities, which helps us detect unusual activity and potential threats before they become serious incidents. We recently introduced Ruby, our generative AI companion for Rubrik Security Cloud, which is designed to accelerate cyber detection, recovery, and resilience.
Traditionally, IT or security operations professionals spend countless hours and much back-and-forth with internal teams to complete these investigations. Ruby aims to streamline this process with a guided and conversational workflow, significantly reducing the time needed to resolve issues. Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and our machine learning-based Data Threat Engine, Ruby assists users in detecting, investigating, and remediating cyber incidents more quickly and effectively. This capability is crucial in today’s environment, where AI-powered attack tools such as FraudGPT and WormGPT are emerging within the cybercrime underground, potentially resulting in more advanced ransomware attacks.
By providing comprehensive AI-driven cybersecurity solutions, we enhance organizational resilience while simultaneously contributing to the broader AI economy.

Q. With the rapid adoption of cloud solutions in the Middle East, how does Rubrik ensure seamless data protection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments?
The adoption of cloud solutions in the Middle East is on the rise, and it’s important for organizations to have strong protection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Rubrik has been leading the way in providing seamless data protection, no matter the infrastructure. Our platform is designed with flexibility in mind, supporting SaaS, cloud-native, and on-premise deployments, making cloud a top priority.
At Rubrik, we’re committed to enhancing the protection and recovery of sensitive information through our cloud architecture and AI-powered solutions, especially as cyber threats continue to evolve. Our machine learning algorithms constantly analyze backup snapshots for any unusual activity, helping us spot potential threats before they grow into serious issues. We also utilize AI to enable quick recovery from attacks, so organizations can easily search for specific data points and restore them efficiently.
This integrated approach empowers businesses to safeguard their data across different environments without sacrificing control or security. By ensuring comprehensive data protection, we assist enterprises in staying resilient while they embrace their cloud transformation journeys. This is especially vital in the Middle East, where countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are showing a strong commitment to cloud, AI technology, and digital transformation.
Q. What are Rubrik’s strategic priorities for the MENA region, and how do you see the cybersecurity landscape evolving in the coming years?
In the MENA region, our strategic priority is to enhance data security while empowering enterprises to build resilience against evolving cyber threats. As countries in the region are rapidly embracing digital transformation, we recognize that this growth also brings increased cyber risks. Our focus is on delivering AI-powered cybersecurity tools that effectively combat threats such as ransomware and data breaches. We anticipate that as more organizations in the region adopt cloud technologies, the demand for robust, AI-driven solutions will surge. Our commitment to the region includes investing in local talent and partnerships to tailor our offerings to the unique challenges faced by businesses in this market. We aim to be a long-term partner in their journey toward enhanced security and operational resilience.
Q. What insights can you share about the current cybersecurity landscape based on your observations at GITEX, particularly regarding emerging threats and trends?
GITEX 2024 has highlighted a significant shift in the cybersecurity landscape, particularly with AI’s dual role in facilitating attacks and enhancing defenses. The increase of AI-driven cybercrime tools enables cybercriminals to execute increasingly sophisticated attacks, which presents a major challenge for security teams. At the same time, we’ve observed that organizations are prioritizing resilience alongside traditional security measures. This means not only focusing on preventing attacks but also ensuring they can recover quickly when incidents occur. At Rubrik, our solutions are designed to support this shift by emphasizing rapid detection and recovery capabilities, allowing businesses to minimize downtime and maintain continuity even amid cyber threats.
Q. GITEX emphasizes smart cities and digital infrastructure. How is Rubrik aligning its solutions to meet the secure and scalable data demands of these initiatives?
As smart cities continue to grow, especially in the Middle East, they’re generating a massive amount of data that needs to be both secure and easily accessible. There is great opportunity in how our solutions can support these initiatives.
We focus on zero trust principles to secure all types of data—whether it’s from enterprise systems, cloud applications, or SaaS platforms. This means we can help government agencies and smart city developers ensure that their data remains protected from cyber threats.
One of the key benefits we offer is our ability to safeguard sensitive government data. We provide air-gapped, immutable backups which helps ensure recovery from ransomware and other malicious attacks. This way, cities can maintain their operations even in the face of cyber challenges. We also understand that speed is critical when it comes to recovery. Our platform continuously monitors for emerging threats, allowing us to quickly identify and address potential issues before they escalate. If something does happen, our solutions enable rapid restoration of affected applications or files, helping cities get back on track without missing a beat.
For example, the City of Las Vegas uses our technology to protect their smart city data while automating their IT operations. This not only enhances their efficiency but also improves the services they provide to citizens.
Overall, we’re committed to supporting the growth of smart cities by providing secure, scalable solutions that meet the highest standards of data protection. It’s all about ensuring these initiatives can thrive while keeping their data safe and accessible.
Tech News
NETSCOUT EXTENDS ADAPTIVE DDOS DEFENSE PROTECTION TO ADDRESS THE RISING BUSINESS COST OF WEAPONIZED BROADBAND AND IOT DEVICES
NETSCOUT® (NASDAQ: NTCT), a leading provider of observability, AIOps, cybersecurity, and DDoS attack protection solutions, today announced an extension of its Adaptive DDoS Protection (ADP) solution enabling service providers to automatically detect and mitigate outbound DDoS attack traffic. By extending protection from the attack target towards its source, NETSCOUT helps operators prevent compromised subscriber devices from disrupting their own networks, consuming costly capacity and attacking customers and organizations across the internet.
Consumer broadband routers, cameras and other IoT devices are increasingly being weaponized by Turbo-Mirai class botnets capable of generating multi-terabit attacks. These outbound attacks have already caused costly service outages, reputational damage and customer loss, and damage to peering relationships risking a large increase in transit costs at service providers around the world. By detecting and mitigating malicious traffic generated by compromised device populations before it leaves their networks, service providers can reduce abuse complaints and infrastructure costs while protecting their own networks and services and helping lower subscriber churn and regulatory risk.
“The combination of higher-speed broadband connectivity and vulnerable IoT devices has been weaponized by a new class of massive DDoS botnets,” said Patrick Donegan, founder and principal analyst, HardenStance. “Source-side mitigation, or attack suppression as it’s sometimes known, is a critical part of the equation. NETSCOUT’s approach, backed by its ATLAS Intelligence Feed (AIF) and ASERT analysts, gives service providers the tools they need to detect and stop attacks before they have an impact, protecting their customers and the broader internet from the large-scale DDoS attacks we have seen.”
Using AI-powered threat intelligence and automated detection and mitigation, NETSCOUT’s ADP solution, an addition to its Arbor Sightline and Arbor Threat Mitigation System:
- Automatically detects and mitigates ever evolving attacks through dynamic detection, intelligent redirection and adaptive mitigation.
- Extends these capabilities to outbound traffic, combining enhanced, customized detection with comprehensive threat intelligence tailored for each ISP.
- Uses NETSCOUT’s proprietary AI/ML-powered DDoS detection to analyze massive volumes of outbound internet traffic to uncover attacks designed to hide within legitimate flows.
- Draws on unique global real-time intelligence of DDoS activity covering approximately half of all internet traffic to rapidly detect and mitigate DDoS attacks and pinpoint the responsible, compromised devices.
“We are extending DDoS defense from the target to the source,” stated Darren Anstee, CTO, Security, NETSCOUT. “By using our internet-scale visibility to derive localized threat intelligence for our customers, NETSCOUT can identify and precisely suppress attacks at their origin, before they cause problems locally or at their target. This capability gives our customers a new level of comprehensive defense across their peering, transit, cloud and customer edges.”
This expansion of capabilities demonstrates how NETSCOUT is applying its global threat visibility and proven ADP solution to meet emerging service provider challenges. By extending an established inbound DDoS workflow to outbound and cross-bound threats, NETSCOUT enables operators to improve network-resilience, cost-controls and revenue protection through its proven Arbor Sightline and Arbor TMS solutions.
Tech News
Illumio Named Leader and Customer Favorite in Forrester Wave for Microsegmentation
Illumio Inc., the breach containment company, today announced it has been named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2026 report. Illumio received the highest scores among all evaluated vendors in both the Current Offering and Strategy categories and was named a “Customer Favorite” for its outstanding customer feedback among evaluated vendors. According to the report, “Repeat customers indicate their satisfaction with the consistently high quality of technical support, regardless of the personnel assigned to their account.”
The report evaluated 10 microsegmentation providers against a comprehensive set of criteria covering product capabilities, strategy, innovation, and customer experience. Illumio received the highest scores possible in 10 evaluation criteria, including areas related to visualization, host-based enforcement, product security, vision, and innovation. According to the report, “Illumio excels at essential microsegmentation functions.”
“Illumio was founded on a simple belief: breaches are inevitable, but cyber disasters are not. We have been singularly focused on one objective — reducing lateral movement and attack surface, and increasing resilience in every organization,” said Andrew Rubin, CEO and Founder of Illumio. “Being named both a Leader and a Customer Favorite reflects to us the strength of our technology, vision, and even more importantly our ability to deliver real outcomes and risk reduction, which is the foundation of the trust our customers place in us every day. In the model threat world we are all now entering, defense must be coupled with resilience. Recovery is the new defense — and the new cyber.”
According to the Forrester Research report, “Organizations with large, heterogeneous environments focused on improving cyber resilience should consider Illumio.” The report also recognized Illumio for:
- “Illumio has articulated a vision for microsegmentation as a core element of security operations.”
- “Illumio is bridging the gap between its traditional users and other parts of the security organization by delivering agents mapped to personas from other teams.”
- “Its UI provides easy access to information that supports both access control and incident response use cases.”
The recognition follows continued innovation across the Illumio Platform, including Network Posture, which helps organizations understand security posture based on real-world traffic and prioritize risk reduction efforts. These capabilities support the growing need for visibility, cyber resilience, and regulatory readiness across complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
Designed for operational simplicity, the Illumio Platform combines Illumio Insights and Illumio Segmentation to help organizations identify, assess, and contain cyber risk across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Security teams can uncover high-risk exposures, visualize potential attack paths, and implement segmentation policies from a single platform to contain threats and improve cyber resilience.
The platform is trusted by some of the world’s largest organizations, including BNP Paribas, eBay, and Microsoft, the latter of which has deployed Illumio Insights and Illumio Segmentation across its entire corporate IT environment. Igor Tsyganskiy, Global CISO of Microsoft, said: “When we needed to bring these capabilities into Microsoft, Illumio was the only segmentation solution that would work at the scale of Microsoft and deliver in our environment.”
Tech News
Rentify Introduces the First AI Workforce for Property Managers, Expanding Earn AI with Renewal Command Center
Earn AI grows into a team of specialised AI agents that help property managers scale operations, automate renewals and embed financial services while keeping people in control of every decision.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Rentify, a cutting-edge fintech & proptech startup, announced the launch of Renewal Command Center, the third specialised AI agent within Earn AI, its AI-native operating system for rental operations.
Today, Earn AI supports property portfolios representing more than AED 22 billion (USD 6 billion) in real estate assets and over AED 1.3 billion in annual rental value, demonstrating how some of the region’s largest property portfolios are already adopting AI-native rental operations.
Unlike traditional software that only records information, Earn AI detects what needs attention, prepares the required work and coordinates execution. Property managers can upload spreadsheets, lease agreements and fragmented portfolio information and see it transformed into a live, structured portfolio view in under 60 seconds.
Each specialised Earn AI agent has a clearly defined responsibility while operating within approval workflows that ensure property managers remain in complete control of every important decision.
| Agent | Core Responsibility |
| Intelligence Agent | Transforms spreadsheets, lease agreements and fragmented property data into a structured intelligence layer across an entire portfolio. |
| Collections Agent | Automated rent collection, payment coordination & portfolio-wide management |
| Renewal Command Center (NEW) | End-to-end renewal workflow that includes lease generation, prepares tenancy agreements accommodating tenant intel, insurance, Open Banking & payments across all Emirates |
Nearly 80% residential tenants renew their tenancy agreements each year, making renewals one of the largest recurring operational responsibilities for property managers. Across the real estate industry in the UAE, experienced property managers are expected to oversee larger portfolios while managing renewals, collections, tenant onboarding, documentation, compliance and financial coordination across multiple disconnected systems. As portfolios grow, operational work grows faster than teams.
Through Rentify’s product Rent Shield in partnership with YallaCompare, landlords and tenants can seamlessly access rental insurance during the renewal process. Integration with Spare, a leading open finance provider, enables Open Finance-powered affordability assessments and Pay-by-Bank payment orchestration that supports Rentify’s existing digital payment infrastructure. The platform will also make rent renewal seamless with embedded financial services.
Rajneel Kumar, Co-founder, Rentify, said, “We built Earn AI around a simple idea that technology should handle the operational heavy lifting so property managers can focus on outcomes for landlords and tenants. For decades, the only way to scale was to hire more people, but AI changes that. Renewal Command Center takes that idea into one of the most repetitive workflows in property management, connecting renewals, tenant intelligence, Open Banking, embedded insurance and payments in a single flow, with every critical decision still made by a person.”
Rashed Hareb, Co-founder & CEO, Rentify, said, “Property managers don’t need more dashboards. They need greater operational capacity. Over the next decade, every major operational function within the property management business will gain a specialised AI counterpart. Our role is to build an operating system that enables those teams to work together seamlessly.”
Rentify believes the future of property management is not about replacing people with artificial intelligence. It is about giving every property manager a specialised AI workforce that quietly handles repetitive operational work, allowing people to focus on relationships, judgement and portfolio growth.
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