Naushad K. Cherrayil | gulfnews
Etisalat is keen to play a vital role in the growth of the information and communication industry (ICT) as the sector is expected to register a growth of around 20-25 per cent in the next five years, said a top official at etisalat.
“To strengthen our position as the leading managed security services provider in the region, we have launched a new cloud-based security-as-a service [Saas] — Managed Web Security Service,” Abdullah Hashim, senior vice-president, ICT, at etisalat, said.
The new Saas facility allows businesses to safeguard their organisational web infrastructure and resources from malicious web traffic, viruses, spywares, and other damaging data capture.
He said it will minimise associated revenue risks and allows businesses to prioritise web traffic based on organisational and bandwidth requirement.
“There is a huge demand for this service. For example, when Aramco was attacked by a malware, one big oil company from the UAE approached us for the security service. So we cleaned and secured the systems in seven hours,” he said.
“The ICT sector grew around 20 per cent last year and it is transforming the way we do business. As a telco provider, it is our duty to provide complete range of services to meet the demand of customers,” he said.
The service is powered by ZServices.
“The launch of the service adds to etisalat’s significant investment in developing flexible and secure services. Customers can be confident of implementing a managed internet security service that will not only extend their safe reach but also enable them to take advantage of cost savings on their capital value,” he said.
Cloud computing is slowly catching up in the UAE as people are “aware of this facility, but it will take time to gain momentum. We are targeting all kinds of businesses for this service and next in the pipeline is infrastructure as a service,” he said.
