CEO: UAE’s Beacon Red Boosts Cyber Resilience in Mideast

BEIRUT: To better help militaries and government organizations evaluate their cybersecurity readiness, UAE’s Beacon Red has developed threat modeling and threat intelligence services that specifically cater to the Middle East.

Over the next few years, attacks against critical infrastructure will continue to be a primary concern in the region as industries figure out the best way to defend against threat actors.

“The greatest risk to critical infrastructure and national security is complacency, which is why we look forward to supporting proactive organizations that are seeking cyber technologies to increase cyber resilience,” Mauricio De Almeida CEO of Beacon Red told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview.

“Given its high internet penetration, the Middle East region and the UAE, specifically, are common targets for sophisticated adversaries and criminals looking for financial gain,” he said.

One of these services is iTHREAT “that focuses on all-source intelligence, which consistently scrapes open-source internet data and the dark web for our customers,” De Almeida explained.

The threats can include leaked IT systems and topology, exposed credentials, network architectures, and product vulnerabilities, so “the customers can receive actionable intelligence of real-time threats.”

But identifying threats is only part of the game. “Instead of worrying about how to react to the next threat, it is vital that organizations become proactive in learning to address the overall threat landscape,” De Almeida said.

The company’s top goal is fostering strategic partnerships. “We are always focused on outcomes and open to work with partners, big or small, for the benefit of our customers,” said De Almeida.

Back in May, the company teamed up with US IT infrastructure company Quali to provide cybersecurity and related services for governments, military, and critical infrastructure projects across all six GCC countries.

“This strategic partnership delivers Beacon Red solutions to the GCC leveraging the Quali software suite to automate and orchestrate the virtualization of the various environments we want to emulate,” the CEO told me. Virtualization technology allows the replication and simulation of computing environments to include hardware platforms, storage devices, and network resources.

The two companies have developed the Cyber Range on Wheels (ROW) and the Cyber Lab on Wheels (LOW), initially launched at IDEX 2021.

“Our ROW and LOW solutions will allow our clients to safely and securely emulate and replicate any environment or any use cases that can be imagined,” the CEO explained. “A SOC [security operations center] is one such example of a powerful use case to train SOC operators on the latest cyber threats, from detonating malicious software and practicing incident response actions to integrating new solutions.”

SOCs are staffed by cybersecurity professionals and outfitted with specialized security tech. SOCs are used by governments and enterprises to monitor IT assets (e.g., devices, servers, networks, etc.), detect cyber threats, and respond to cyber incidents.

ROW is a portable, orchestrated and automated solution that allows the company to replicate and simulate a client’s production environment. One for example could be for a vulnerability assessment or penetration testing or for the purposes of training a staff or new technology or interoperability and integration testing of a new solution or security products.

The joint solution will enable customers to establish complex cyber ranges and interoperability testing scenarios for their clients in the GCC region.

“Having a hybrid environment that merges both physical devices and virtual environments expands the power of the cyber range to support industrial control systems, radio frequency equipment, and a whole host of other use cases,” he explained. “It can be used for various training scenarios, mission space work-up and exercises, interoperability testing and supply chain security testing.”

When asked about his growth plan for the next couple of years, De Almeida said his company recognized a major need within the GCC for solutions like ROW and LOW. “We expect significant revenue over the next few years as clients embrace the solutions and leverage them to support their own requirements.”

Today, the company is already working with several clients on their specific use cases and development requirements, the CEO revealed.

“For unique hardware and software that clients would like to virtualize within the ROW/LOW environments, Beacon Red’s engineers can create these shells for client use, giving them powerful capabilities to leverage the solution for their own unique use cases and scenarios,” he said.

Beacon Red, along with Quali, took part in ISS World Middle East conference in Dubai this week. Beyond cyber tech, the companies showcased their ability to deliver language training, professional development training and other training that is critical for national security. “We also broadcasted our advance personnel selection services,” the CEO concluded.