Mohamed Abdelhak: IBM, Mobily to Help Review Saudi Ministry’s Data Protection Strategy

Saudi Arabia’s education ministry has selected IBM and Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) to look at how the country’s school system can strengthen its information security by using the companies’ assessment tools.

Mohamed Abdelhak, country general manager for IBM Saudi Arabia, said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia sought to take a “proactive approach” against increasing security threats and targeted attacks worldwide.

Through their alliance, Mobily and IBM’s security tools will seek to illustrate “how organizations can improve their IT security in ways that not only allow innovation but help accelerate it,” he said.

IBM said the goal of the system review on the ministry’s architecture is to build a data protection strategy against cyber threats.

The ministry will use IBM’s managed and cloud security services on Mobily’s Tier IV data center and also adopt predictive analytics, early warning systems, correlation studies and other technologies that seek to pinpoint vulnerabilities for bolstering security at those points.