Saeed Mohammed al Tayer, MD and CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, DEWA, yesterday inaugurated the 3rd Enterprise Risk Management, ERM, conference, in partnership with the UK Institute of Risk Management, IRM.

The conference was attended by Yousuf Hamad Al Shaibani, CEO of Dubai Electronic Security Centre, Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation, Empower, and over 500 experts and specialists in cyber security and risk management from the public and private sectors.

Speaking on the occasion, Al Tayer said, "This year’s conference’s theme is ‘Risk and Cyber Security 2017,’ which is especially important considering the increasing challenges and threats resulting from rapid technological advances, and the accelerated developments in smart transformation. Cyber security has become a key requirement for smart cities. And organising this conference in Dubai emphasises the UAE’s leadership in consolidating cyber security, to keep up with the widespread use of smart technologies and their accompanying risks."

"In May, thousands of organisations worldwide were infected with ransom malware, which encrypted data and demanded a ransom to unlock it. Hypothetical cloud-service attack scenarios by Lloyd’s, a global insurance market leader, and Cyence, a cyber-risk analytics platform, estimate that the average losses caused by such a disruption could range from US$4.6 billion to $53 billion, but actual losses could be as high as $121 billion," added Al Tayer.

Al Tayer noted that the Computer Emergency Readiness Team in the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in the UAE foiled 561 cyberattacks during the first half of 2017. This included 284 attacks on government and semi-government websites, and 277 attacks on private-sector websites. Attacks during this period accounted for 53 percent of the total attacks in 2016, reflecting the high frequency of hacking attempts on public and private websites.