Humans are the weakest link in the entire chain of cyber security protection as they easily fall prey to many social engineering tricks or, at times, unintentionally disclose sensitive information, said an IT expert.

Stakeholder awareness is crucial to creating an effective defence mechanism, stated Senthil Kumar, the managing director and Middle East regional head for IT consulting services at Protiviti, a global consulting firm.

Senthil was addressing delegates at the first Kuwait Industrial Automation and Control Systems – Cyber Security Conference, along with Michael Porier, managing director at Protiviti.

The duo presented effective solutions that organizations in the Middle East can leverage to set up a well-structured cyber security protection mechanism.

Protiviti participated in this two-day event held at the Salwa Al-Sabah Ballroom & Theater, Marina Hotel. Delegates at the conference included ministers, government officials and senior leaders from leading oil & gas companies.

The delegates agreed that organizations were more vulnerable to cyber intrusions now than ever before. As the attacks become more sophisticated, simple security controls are not effective for tackling this growing menace, they added.

According to SANS 2014 Survey on control system security, the number of entities with identified or suspected security breaches has risen from 28 per cent to nearly 40 per cent. Only nine per cent can say with surety that they haven't been breached.

“Organizations need to understand that compliance does not equal to security. It is vital to put in place multiple security counter measures to ensure the information asset is truly protected,” said subject-matter-expert Micheal Porier.

His presentation on “Securing SCADA Systems – Thoughts and Considerations” emphasized on the framework, standards, models and management actions that needs to be undertaken to create a comprehensive system.

As one of the panelist of a highly interactive session on “Controls to manage cyber-attacks”, Senthil discussed various proactive, corrective and preventive measures that can be implemented by organizations.

"Middle East has increasingly become a target for cyber intrusions and attacks resulting in exposure of sensitive information and disruption of mission-critical operations and infrastructure," he added.

Protiviti’s IT consulting services partner with CIOs, CFOs and other senior executives to ensure their organizations maximize the return on information systems investments, while at the same time minimizing their risks.

"Using strong IT governance to ensure alignment with business strategies, we drive excellence through the IT infrastructure and into the supporting applications, data analytics, social media assessment, and security," said Senthil.-TradeArabia News Service