NXN (formerly neXgen Group), the region’s leading smart cities digital services organisation, has joined forces with McAfee to launch a managed security services provider (MSSP) practice in the Middle East.
The MSSP practice will enable NXN to build on its already impressive Smart City Managed Service offering by providing governments and enterprises in the GCC, particularly in the critical infrastructure sector, security monitoring, threat detection and analysis services.
Commenting on the decision to add managed security to their service offering, Ghazi Atallah, CEO of NXN, said, “Over the last couple of years, we have made significant investments in building a comprehensive Safe City Managed Services offering and today, through our integrated portfolio of technology, intelligence and insights, we provide smart city managed services—including urban safety and security, security analytics and critical infrastructure protection—to governments, real estate and enterprise customers across the GCC. Adding cybersecurity capabilities is the next step in our evolution and core to our strategy of being able to ultimately offer enterprises end-to-end Smart City technology solutions.”
NXN will leverage its Security Operations Center (SOC) to offer enterprises a full suite of customised security monitoring, threat detection and analysis solutions. As the SOC evolves and matures, NXN plans on rolling out a more standard and generic cybersecurity offering that will cut horizontally across all market verticals.
Explaining the decision to use McAfee technology for their SOC, Atallah said, “McAfee is one of the global leaders in cybersecurity technologies and is consistently recommended as one of the top technology partners by industry analysts. Furthermore, their leadership position in Security information and event management (SIEM) technology, well-established and robust support structure and extensive operational on-the-ground experience in the region, made them an ideal partner for us.”
“With the rising adoption of the internet of things (IoT) and the associated proliferation of connected devices, we are seeing cyber-criminals use these devices as an attack vector. With IoT at the heart of these Smart Cities, there is no doubt that having a robust cyber security infrastructure is going to be critical to the success of any Smart City project,” said Tarek Jundi, managing director, Middle East & Turkey, McAfee.
"Today’s cyber-attack landscape requires a shift to platform solutions that address not only detection, but also protection that includes advanced intelligence, and near real time correction when bad actors are discovered in the environment," noted Jundi.
"As one of the leading Smart City Managed Services providers in the region, I am delighted that NXN has decided to use McAfee technology as the foundation of their SOC and I am confident that together, we will be able to help enterprises that are committed to a smart future, address the entire threat defense lifecycle," he added.