Page 34 - SAMENA Trends - June-August 2021

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

per share or 13.5% of paid-up capital for the first telecom company in the GCC range of financial related services such as
the six-month period of 2021. This is in line to receive a license for Open Banking, digital wallet creation and cards issuance
with the 2020 interim dividend payment with the establishment of Batelco’s new services.” “During the first half of 2021,
and the Board of Directors commitment licensed company, Batelco Financial Batelco focused on delivering exceptional
to continuously deliver strong returns to Services. This step reflects the Board’s speeds and innovative products for the
shareholders. Commenting on Batelco’s aspirations to advance steadily towards enterprise, consumer, and global business
performance for the first half of 2021, digital transformation while enhancing sectors. Key achievements included
Batelco Chairman, Shaikh Abdulla bin and growing Batelco’s core business,” introducing new 5G Mobile Broadband
Khalifa Al Khalifa said, “Batelco’s Board is the Chairman continued. Shaikh Abdulla packages to deliver speeds six times
pleased with the Company’s performance concluded, “Investments in growing our faster than 4G, and redesigned Home Fiber
for the first half of the year. Following digital portfolio is in line with international Broadband packages with speeds as high
a positive start to the year, we are glad trends and continues to be an important as 1Gbps. “The development of Batelco’s
to maintain the momentum, which is step in our strategic plans to ensure that Data Centres remains high on the agenda
reflected in our financial results for the Batelco is in a position to be a key player in and in line with world class standards in
second quarter. Batelco achieved a 4% the growth of Bahrain’s digital economy.” Data security, our teams worked hard to
increase in revenues, contributing to a 4% Speaking following the announcement of achieve PCI DSS ‘Payment Card Industry
increase in EBITDA and 5% increase in net the Half Year financials, Batelco CEO Mikkel Data Security Standard’ compliance, for
profit for the six months ended June 2021. Vinter said, “We are proud of the strong Batelco’s three Data Centers, thus ensuring
We appreciate the efforts of the executive financial results for the first six months of a reliable and highly secure data storage
team for their diligent management and 2021, which are supported by year-on-year environment for our customers.” “The
commitment to implementing the strategic increases in fixed broadband, adjacent successes of the second quarter reflect
objectives.” “Delivering strong returns for services and wholesale revenues.” “It’s the dedicated efforts of the entire Batelco
Batelco’s shareholders is a priority for the been rewarding to make good progress in team who worked together to achieve the
Board of Directors and accordingly, we are converting key strategic plans in the digital desired results. I am grateful to each team
glad to note an increase in Earnings Per space into actions, including the successful member and encourage them to keep up
Share (EPS) of 22.7 fils for the six month roll-out of key projects such as the launch the positive momentum to execute our
period, up from 21.7 fils in H1 2020,” the of Batelco Financial Services, to provide ambitious business plans for the second
Chairman added. “We’re proud of being both consumers and SMEs with a broad half of 2021,” Mr. Vinter concluded.

Cisco Talos Identifies Ransomware as Number 1
Security Threat Between April-June 2021

The Cisco Talos Incident Response (CTIR) team, backed by the healthcare was targeted the most out of all verticals for the third
world’s largest commercial threat intelligence organization, has quarter in a row, with government being the second most-targeted.
released its quarterly Threat Assessment Report. Cisco Talos Commenting on the Cisco Talos Threat Assessment Report, Fady
observed a variety of attacks, with ransomware being the quarter’s Younes, Cybersecurity Director at Cisco Middle East and Africa
most dominant threat. According to CTIR, ransomware accounted said: “There are many reasons why actors are continuing to
for almost half of all incidents, and more than triple that of the next target the healthcare industry, including the COVID-19 pandemic,
most common threat. Actors targeted a broad range of verticals, incentivizing victims to pay to restore services as quickly as
including transportation, utilities, health care, government, possible. On a positive note, there were several pre-ransomware
telecoms, technology, machinery, chemical distribution, events in which timely detection via Cisco Secure products, along
manufacturing, education, real estate and agriculture. However, with quick remediation led to containment of the incident before
encryption could occur.” Ransomware actors used commercial
tools like Cobalt Strike, open-source tools and tools native on the
victim’s device. Other observed threats included the exploitation
of known vulnerabilities, cryptocurrency mining, and account
compromise. Interestingly, there were multiple incidents involving
trojanized USB drives, which is an older attack vector not seen
in many years. he lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA)
remains one of the biggest impediments for enterprise security.
CTIR frequently observes ransomware incidents that could have
been prevented if MFA had been enabled on critical services.
CTIR urges organizations to implement MFA wherever possible.

34 JUN-AUG 2021