Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Across the Middle East, governments are rapidly introducing new cybersecurity frameworks and regulations in response to the need to protect critical national infrastructure and digital economies. In the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, for example, this is reshaping how organizations approach compliance and forcing security leaders to rethink their priorities.

In effect, organizations must now treat sensitive data not only as a privacy concern, but as a national security asset. This is no longer the domain of compliance officers alone—it’s a cross-enterprise challenge that demands executive-level ownership.

When vulnerability scans return thousands or even millions of findings, leading to an avalanche of tickets to evaluate, the real challenge begins: figuring out what to fix first. Exposure prioritization is the critical next phase of a mature exposure management program. After defining what exposure management is and establishing a normalized foundation of aggregated data, the question becomes: how do we cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters?

On June 23, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission’s sweeping amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) took effect, ushering in more stringent duties for any operator collecting or using children’s data—whether via websites, services, or AI‑powered agents. Companies must achieve full compliance by April 22, 2026 (Finnegan | Leading IP+ Law Firm, Bass, Berry & Sims PLC).

Most organizations have invested in their cybersecurity programs, ensuring that targeted actions have been taken, such as the deployment of security tools or the formalization of cyber-relevant policies, to reduce their exposure.

In its 2025 State of the Underground report, Bitsight TRACE identified the manufacturing sector as the most targeted industry for the third consecutive year, accounting for 22% of the 4,853 cyberattacks where sector attribution was possible. Manufacturing is the backbone of global supply chains, and when a cyberattack halts operations, even just briefly, the ripple effects can be enormous. Production delays, missed shipments, and service disruptions quickly cascade across industries.

While financial institutions enjoy many benefits from cooperating with third-party service providers, this cooperation also raises significant concerns regarding the security of the data and resources these vendors have access to. In this article, we discuss why financial institutions hire independent contractors and what cybersecurity risks this cooperation entails. We also explore how building a third-party vendor risk management program can help you mitigate these risks.

AI is moving through enterprises faster than security teams can track. Over the past year, AI privacy incidents have risen 56%, and most of those stem from tools security never knew were in use. 84% of SaaS tools are purchased outside IT, and 62% of CISOs say fewer than a quarter of AI tools in use have been approved through procurement. That means sensitive, regulated, or confidential data is often flowing to AI services invisibly, sometimes across borders, without governance or guardrails.