Preparing for the longer term and a 5G world
Saudi Arabia introduced “Saudi Vision 2030” in 2016, a daring pathway for the nation’s future. A transformative and deeply formidable plan, it seeks to unlock Saudi Arabia’s huge potential by making a diversified, modern nation for the advantage of future generations. Since the launch of “Saudi Vision 2030,” the nation has witnessed unprecedented change and noteworthy progress. One firm enjoying a crucial position on this transformation is the Saudi Telecom Company.
As the nation’s largest data and communication know-how firm, Saudi Telecom is on the convergence of computing, communications, and authorities insurance policies that form how data and communications must be accessed, secured, processed, transmitted, and saved. With its formidable plan targeted on the longer term, Saudi Telecom has been serving to its residents, companies, utilities, and protection put together for a 5G world. A forward-thinking firm, Saudi Telecom gives prospects with modern web companies and infrastructure platforms in addition to connectivity and managed companies.
Because it hosts 60 % of the nation’s web and communication site visitors, Saudi Telecom is uniquely positioned to drive digital transformation throughout the nation. To allow these efforts, Saudi Telecom is further vigilant about safety challenges, together with cyberattacks. Protecting crucial infrastructure from cyberthreats is a strategic crucial for the corporate and the nation. As a consequence, safety is a key part of every part Saudi Telecom does.
In 2019, Saudi Telecom got down to reimagine its Cyber Defense Center (CDC) right into a Center of Excellence with modern safety, detection, and protection capabilities. Yasser J. Alghamdi, Director of the Cyber Defense Center, joined to supply strategic course and improve general safety measures at a time when the corporate had been impacted by a sequence of ransomware and espionage assaults.
But to efficiently replace the Cyber Defense Center and obtain 2030 Vision mandates, Saudi Telecom wanted a accomplice with deep experience in cybersecurity; one with operational groups positioned in a number of geographies throughout Saudi Arabia to help incident response necessities. Cisco turned that accomplice to Saudi Telecom, offering the deep stage of experience and capabilities wanted for each cybersecurity and 5G.
“Cisco helps us keep our environment secure so we can continue
to support digital transformation across the country.”—Yasser J. Alghamdi, Director, Cyber Defense Center, Saudi Telecom
Keeping the Saudi web safe
To deal with cybersecurity points, Cisco Business Critical Services specialists labored intently with Saudi Telecom groups to know their challenges, goals, and key outcomes wanted, from each a enterprise and know-how perspective.
Cisco then labored along with them to boost Saudi Telecom’s cybersecurity capabilities with superior monitoring methods, together with machine studying, automation, and the combination of a number of safety applied sciences. To do that, we created a personalized answer to handle their distinctive necessities.
A sequence of steps had been taken to construct a Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. Here’s a sampling:
- Maturity evaluation: Cisco carried out a baseline evaluation to higher perceive Saudi Telecom’s community atmosphere. Roadmaps had been additionally created to information safety initiatives, and cybersecurity technique workshops had been held to switch abilities and data.
- Government cybersecurity necessities: Cisco labored with Saudi Telecom to develop cybersecurity documentation required by the Saudi authorities. What usually would have taken three to 4 months was expedited with Cisco’s help.
- Vendor-agnostic safety strategy: Saudi Telecom safety leverages know-how from a number of distributors. So, Cisco utilized a vendor-agnostic safety strategy to allow multivendor techniques to work optimally collectively. For instance, a threat-hunting answer that makes use of machine studying makes use of the facility of a number of distributors to streamline accuracy.
The outcomes communicate for themselves
Today, Saudi Telecom has greater than 300,000 community nodes; 10,000 servers; 30,000 endpoints; and 250 crucial functions in its in depth system, together with 14 TB of occasions they seize and course of each day.
Working collectively, Business Critical Services and Saudi Telecom groups had been in a position to improve visibility throughout crucial property greater than 90 %. With the addition of latest sources and higher platform administration, over the previous three years, Saudi Telecom’s Cyber Defense Center decreased imply time to detect (MTTD) from 48 hours to lower than half-hour — a big enchancment of 95 %.
Mean time to response (MTTR) decreased from 8 hours to lower than 1 hour—an effectivity enchancment of greater than 87 %. And time to include undesired occasions decreased from 48 to 4 hours, a drop of 92 %.
Incident response was optimized by creating and sharing greater than 40 automation playbooks and 50 machine studying use circumstances. Plus, new incident response operation and reporting processes had been developed, and forensics and malware evaluation toolkits had been acquired.
All of this contributed to Saudi Telecom’s skill to amass CREST SOC accreditation from the Council for Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) for his or her Security Operations Centers (SOC). Saudi Telecom’s Cyber Defense Center was additionally acknowledged with a maturity rating of 4 out of 5, in accordance with the U.S. Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).
In addition, Cisco was in a position to assist Saudi Telecom align with the MITRE ATT&CK framework, enabling them to seize details about attackers, together with their methods and places. We helped them construct greater than 500 use circumstances aligned with the MITRE normal, to allow them to speed up assault detection and mitigation. Always trying forward, Saudi Telecom continues to strengthen its technical capabilities with investments in rising applied sciences and automation and a powerful governance mannequin.
“Through our partnership with Cisco, we feel confident that we have achieved a strong level of maturity, and we are now in the process of seeking to advance our cybersecurity posture even further,” says Alghamdi.
Watch this video about Saudi Telecom Company’s story:
To learn extra about Saudi Telecom’s story, go to the Cisco CX web site.
to allow your group for a safe 5G future.
Share: