EC News DeskQualys, a provider of cloud-based security and compliance solutions, has launched the Qualys UAE Cloud. This platform will allow public and private enterprises across the Middle East to innovate as Qualys brings them security and visibility across their hybrid IT environment.
The move comes as regional cloud migration reaches fever pitch. Last year, YouGov revealed that 88% of IT stakeholders in the UAE were planning budget increases for cloud computing.
Qualys UAE Cloud allows organisations to automatically build a comprehensive global IT asset inventory, identify in real-time devices that connect to the network, identify and prioritise vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, identify malware and respond, with deployment of a light weight agent, network sensors and cloud connectors.
“Qualys UAE Cloud allows organisations to automatically build a comprehensive global IT asset inventory.”
Across the GCC, the emergence of the pandemic has acted as an accelerant to digital transformation, with IDC projecting the Gulf’s public cloud market will more than double over the next four years, from $956 million in 2020 to $2.35 billion in 2024. IDC has also predicted that hybrid clouds, known for complexity and compliance issues, will grow in popularity.
But many organisations in heavily regulated industries such as banking, oil and gas, and government have had to consider issues such as privacy and data residency when planning their migration journeys. The Qualys UAE Cloud platform will eliminate these barriers and will act as the company’s main hub for the Middle East.
“Qualys UAE Cloud platform will eliminate barriers and act as the company’s main hub for Middle East.”
The Qualys UAE Cloud will offer all the company’s key solutions including Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response; Multi-Vector EDR; Global IT Asset Inventory; Configuration Management; Certificate Inventory; Threat Protection; Continuous Monitoring; Patch Management; Container Security; Web Application Scanning; and Web Application Firewalls.
The Qualys Cloud Platform, will support local compliance requirements, such as the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre’s Information Security Policy and the UAE Information Assurance Regulation. It will also allow Qualys’ partners, such as managed service providers, the opportunity to offer cloud services to sectors that are highly regulated.
The UAE’s cloud-first strategy, as set out in the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority’s guidelines of 2018, calls for the establishment of a regional data hub.
“The Qualys Cloud Platform will support local compliance requirements.”
However, progress does not happen in a bubble. Attention must be paid to the security and privacy of individuals and organisations. Economies rise and fall on the building or degradation of trust. The Qualys UAE cloud has been available since December 2020
The lack of visibility into risks affecting global enterprise IT assets is a major challenge for securing organisations of any size. Scanning performance is a big factor, especially when scanning hundreds of thousands of assets, and results in the identification of millions of potential issues that each require prioritisation and remediation.
The biggest challenge with occasionally connected devices, however, is that traditional scanning solutions require systems to be accessible when the scan is executed. Otherwise, they’re invisible and no relevant data about those assets can be collected. The Qualys Cloud Agent solves these problems.
The Qualys Cloud Agent can be installed anywhere, including laptops, desktops, servers or virtual machines, and can be deployed via an installer. The agent is designed to have minimal impact on the system and the network, normally consuming less than 2% of CPU resources with peaks in the range of 5% during normal operation.
“The lack of visibility into risks affecting global enterprise IT assets is a major challenge for securing organisations.”
Once installed, the agent will take a full configuration assessment of its host while running in the background and uploading that snapshot to the Qualys Cloud Platform. All the data collected by the Qualys Cloud Agent installed in an IT environment resides within the Qualys Cloud Platform.
Cloud Agent simplifies asset discovery, tracking, security and compliance monitoring in dynamic cloud environments like Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure. Visibility is enabled by embedding the agent into master images in cloud servers. When a new instance is created from the master image, it automatically activates the agent, which instantly registers and tracks the security and compliance of every instance.
“The agent is self-updating, keeping itself up to date with no need to reboot.”
This functionality eliminates the need to implement a separate discovery mechanism or to build automation around spawning new scanners to scan the new instances. Additionally, the information is always up to date, even when your virtual workloads are offline to free up computing resources. When an image is brought back online, it updates the snapshot, keeping information current.
The agent is self-updating, keeping itself up to date with no need to reboot. Agents check in with the Cloud Platform and update the snapshot with new information as changes occur, removing the need to poll the system to update asset inventory data. Having a current picture of the system configuration allows inquiries even when the endpoint is offline.
“Traditional scanning solutions require systems to be accessible when the scan is executed.”
The Qualys Integrated Solutions Suite is supported by the Qualys Cloud Platform and Qualys Cloud Agent. The integrated suite of IT security and compliance solutions includes: Asset Management, Dynamic Tagging, Cloud Agent for Vulnerability Management, Cloud Agent for Policy Compliance, Cloud Agent for Policy Compliance, Cloud Agent for Elastic Virtual Cloud Environments.
The UAE has been a clear leader in cloud-first technology strategy, as it has moved forward boldly with its ambition to become a regional data hub. The Qualys UAE Cloud will help further this goal.
The Qualys Cloud Agent enables visibility of IT assets, through a low footprint agent, into connected mobile and virtual devices, for security and compliance.
