On March 3 and 4, 2014 Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, will be in Riyadh to meet with key government officials and financial sector leaders to discuss current cyberthreats and ways of combatting them. Following a number of top level meetings of his and of other Kaspersky Lab senior managers in November 2013 in Saudi Arabia, this visit is testament to the company’s commitment to help the Saudi government achieve its objective of creating a safer digital environment for both enterprises and individuals across the nation.
Ahead of his Riyadh trip, Eugene commented: “Saudi Arabia plays an extremely important role in the world, and therefore the state of cybersecurity in the country is a matter of global importance. It is a rapidly growing economy facing very significant risks in cyberspace. The sophistication of malware continues to grow alongside the danger it poses, and governments, private companies and international organizations should work hand in hand to keep the Internet safe and secure.”
On March 4 Eugene Kaspersky will share his expert take on the state of modern-day cybercrime and what needs to be done to tackle it. The presentation will take place at the Information Security Workshop for the Financial Sector organized by SAMA, the “Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency”. Kaspersky Lab’s participation in the event comes right after the global announcement of the new Kaspersky Fraud Prevention platform, which is aimed at helping financial organizations and companies in the e-commerce sector protect electronic payments on computers and mobile devices.
Both organizations and ordinary users across Saudi Arabia continue to face cyberthreats as a result of increasing Internet and mobile penetration. Findings of the Global Corporate IT Security Risks 2013 survey, conducted by B2B International in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab, show 98% of companies in Saudi Arabia reporting at least one external IT security incident in 12 months. At the same time a great many people make use of online banking services or make online purchases; the widespread penetration of e-payments has made the theft of electronic money a profitable business for criminals. The study found that in the preceding 12-month period 62% of users around the world had encountered cyberthreats that targeted their accounts.