Cyber resilience has become a board-level priority for organisations across the Gulf as regional tensions, increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) reshape enterprise risk strategies.
According to Yahya Kassab, senior director and general manager for Gulf and Saudi Arabia at Commvault, recent geopolitical developments have acted as a wake-up call for many organisations, accelerating efforts to strengthen recovery capabilities and protect critical data assets.
“Historically, organisations implemented backup and data protection primarily for compliance reasons,” Kassab tells Computer Weekly. “But cyber resilience is a different story. It requires different processes, different technologies and a different approach to recovery.”
“In a cyber attack, the key question is how quickly you can recover a clean copy of your data,” he says. “If your production environment is compromised, your disaster recovery environment may be compromised as well. Without cyber-resilient capabilities, recovery becomes extremely difficult.”
Awareness remains the biggest challenge
Despite significant investment in cyber security technologies across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Kassab believes awareness remains one of the region’s most pressing challenges. Many organisations continue to view disaster recovery and cyber resilience as interchangeable disciplines, creating dangerous gaps in preparedness.
In a cyber attack, the key question is how quickly you can recover a clean copy of your data. If your production environment is compromised, your disaster recovery environment may be compromised as well. Without cyber-resilient capabilities, recovery becomes extremely difficult Yahya Kassab, Commvault
“Some organisations think that because they have a disaster recovery plan, they are protected from cyber threats,” he says. “The reality is that cyber resilience requires additional controls and dedicated recovery capabilities.”
Recent events across the region have prompted many IT and security leaders to reassess their readiness for ransomware attacks and other disruptive cyber incidents. Kassab said Commvault has seen increased demand from organisations seeking assistance with cyber recovery planning and resilience assessments.
“The events we have witnessed recently have opened the eyes of many customers and increased the priority they place on cyber-resilient solutions,” he says.
AI creates both opportunities and risks
The rapid adoption of AI across government and enterprise sectors is adding further complexity to cyber security and data protection strategies.
Kassab points to the UAE government’s ambitions around agentic AI as an example of the scale of transformation underway. “AI is very important for digital transformation, but it also increases complexity,” he says. “Organisations will have to manage significantly larger volumes of data, new AI-driven identities and entirely new operational models.”
Commvault is approaching AI from three perspectives – using it to simplify operations and threat detection, applying it to improve visibility and governance of enterprise data, and protecting AI models themselves.
“The third area is becoming increasingly important,” adds Kassab. “Organisations are making significant investments in AI models and training data. These assets must be protected in the same way as any other critical business resource.”
As agentic AI deployments increase, ensuring the security, governance and recoverability of AI systems is expected to become a major priority for CIOs across the region.
However, Kassab believes the debate is no longer about choosing between cloud and on-premise infrastructure. “The question today is not cloud or non-cloud,” he says. “Both will continue to exist, and hybrid cloud is becoming the dominant model.”
Organisations are increasingly evaluating cloud adoption on a workload-by-workload basis. Sensitive applications and data may remain on-premise, while other workloads are migrated to public cloud environments.
“The decision is driven by the workload itself,” he says. “Some workloads make perfect sense in the cloud, while others are too sensitive or have specific regulatory requirements.”
This growing complexity is increasing demand for unified data protection and cyber resilience platforms capable of securing workloads across multiple cloud and on-premise environments.
Aligning with national transformation agendas
As Gulf governments continue to pursue ambitious digital transformation programmes, technology suppliers are also adapting their strategies to meet local regulatory and sovereignty requirements.
Organisations need to be prepared for both disaster recovery and cyber recovery. The ability to recover clean data and continue operations is becoming one of the most important measures of resilience Yahya Kassab, Commvault
Kassab says Commvault is working closely with governments across the region to align with national cyber security frameworks and data residency regulations. “Every country has its own requirements around data sovereignty, and it is important that we align with those regulations,” he says.
Beyond compliance, Commvault is also investing in local skills development and cyber security capacity building. The company recently announced plans to establish an Innovation Excellence Centre in Abu Dhabi, which will focus on research, development and workforce training.
“The objective is to help build local cyber resilience capabilities and prepare the next generation of cyber security professionals,” says Kassab.
For CIOs across the GCC, the message is increasingly clear: cyber resilience is no longer solely an IT concern but a business continuity imperative.
As organisations accelerate cloud adoption, embrace AI and navigate a more volatile threat landscape, the ability to recover trusted data quickly has become just as important as preventing attacks in the first place.
Recent regional events may have heightened the sense of urgency, but according to Kassab, the underlying challenge remains unchanged. “Organisations need to be prepared for both disaster recovery and cyber recovery,” he says. “The ability to recover clean data and continue operations is becoming one of the most important measures of resilience.”
