Glimpse of the unified cybersecurity foundations at GISEC 2025
Last week, I had the chance to attend GISEC Global 2025, the Middle East and Africa's largest cybersecurity event held at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Approximately a week of professional meetings that includes a gathering at the event that brought together more than 25,000 cybersecurity fanatics from over 160 countries, exploring how artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and cloud technologies are reshaping the security landscape altogether.
From executive roundtables to live demos and tech showcases, the focus was very clear: how do we build resilience in an increasingly AI-driven world? No, it was not just about deepfake videos but everything to secure today and our future with the AI revolution.
Truth be told, I was quite impressed by how one of the leading solutions providers in the world presented itself during the event, Huawei, who was also the lead strategic partner of the event. Huawei championed the concept of a Unified Cybersecurity Foundation, highlighting how it works towards building a unified and consistent security solution.
It was not just like any other tech demo that was presented within the massive 8 halls of the conference. It was, in fact, a blueprint for how to protect the digital and intelligent world we are living in today.
During one of the sessions I attended, Dr Zhu Shenggao, who leads Huawei's Cloud Middle East and Central Asia, stated that cybersecurity and privacy protection are the cornerstones of development in the digital and intelligent world. He stated that Huawei's approach integrates protection across cloud, network, edge, and endpoint environments to provide the comprehensive security foundation that organisations need to innovate with confidence. In simple words, deep integration is the foundation they are building upon.
Huawei has built a layered security approach that covers every digital surface. At the heart of this is SecMaster, an AI-powered security operations centre that delivers over 99% threat detection accuracy, cuts investigation time by 83%, and traces attack sources 95% faster, according to the organisation's claim.
Another solution known as 'Xinghe Intelligent SASE' brings cloud, network, edge, and endpoints together with an AI security brain capable of handling 99% of security alarms automatically, as noted by Richard Wu, who is presently the President of Huawei's Security Product Domain.
With ransomware threats skyrocketing, causing global losses of USD $42 billion in 2024, Huawei's multi-layer ransomware defense stood out by boasting a 99.99% detection rate, actively defending against threats, and leveraging its AI-powered endpoint protection that backs up files as soon as suspicious encryption is detected.
Richard Wu emphasised that in today's increasingly complex threat landscape, where cyber-attacks are more frequent, automated, and covert, cybersecurity must evolve from reactive to proactive threat containment.
Another interesting solution that was showcased during the event was the 'OceanProtect E8000', an all-in-one backup and recovery data protection system that can restore 1TB of data in just 20 seconds, and its high-density design saves up to 90% rack space. According to the presenter, the OceanProtect E8000 provides comprehensive protection and rapid recovery capabilities in a single integrated system that dramatically reduces complexity while enhancing security.
Last year (in 2024),Huawei invested $24.6 billion in Research and Development (R&D), about 20.8% of its total revenue. Over the past decade, that adds up to approximately $171.1 billion, with 3,000+ cybersecurity researchers on staff and 5% of all R&D focused specifically on cybersecurity. This is a crystal clear commitment to innovation.
Furthermore, their approach goes further than releasing products but also focuses on the design. You may note this on the quality consumer products they keep releasing in the market. Exclusive led workshops, from AI-driven threat management and ransomware protection to supply chain security and global cybersecurity legislation, were organised during the event. Illustrating a secure digital future together was the chief goal in a world where attacks are more sophisticated, automation is widespread, and data is the new gold. Cybersecurity is no longer an activity or task done by an IT department of an organisation. No, it's in fact a foundational pillar of the digital transformation of any organisation. The unified cybersecurity foundation presented and illustrated during GISEC isn't just a solution; it's indeed a strategy for the future.
Tariq al Barwani
The writer is the founder of Knowledge Oman
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