Dubai hosts Kaspersky Lab's 1st regional partner conference

Speaking from his Moscow base a few days ahead of Kaspersky Lab's 1st Middle East & Africa Partner Conference, to be held in Dubai from May 4th to 6th, Eugene Kaspersky said that the impact of cyber attacks on the region's economy will be severe unless businesses raise the necessary barriers to protect themselves.

"The region is more likely to be challenged by online crime activities due to the proliferation of the SME sector which is projected to account for up to 80 percent of Middle East businesses by 2011 according to IDC," said Kaspersky.

"Traditionally, SME' are less proactive in developing online defense systems and thus more vulnerable to attacks. But the recent emergence of conficker, which demonstrated the ferocity of modern viruses, combined with the increasing dexterity and inventiveness of malware producers have alerted more businesses to take corrective action against online attacks.

"According to our lab, in 2007 every two minutes five new malware samples were detected and in 2008 new malware was discovered every two seconds. Factors that lead to the apparition and development of cyber-crime include the transition from viruses to Trojan horses and the evolution from software hooliganism towards premeditated crime for financial gain," said Kaspersky who concluded: "Cyber-crime is a $100bn industry surpassing drug dealing in 2006 according to data from the US Department of Treasury."

Kaspersky will head a strong delegation of Kaspersky Lab executives who will converge to Dubai next week for the company's inaugural channel partner strategy meeting which this year is titled 'Change for the Better'. Garry Kondakov, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab EEMEA, Keith Maskell, Vice President, Corporate Business Division and Andrey Sokurenko, Senior Retail Manager will also participate in the three-day conference which will see a gathering of more than 100 Kaspersky Lab partners from across the GCC, Levant, North Africa and South Africa.

"This is truly going to be a milestone occasion for Kaspersky Lab as we are stepping up our expansion efforts in the Middle East since setting up our regional headquarters in Dubai last year," said Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab Middle East.

"At the conference, we will unveil our channel strategy which is a key growth component for us in a diverse market where Kaspersky Lab has a significant share that includes number one position in a few countries and a close third in some others.

"The upcoming conference is a demonstration of our commitment to our partner ecosystem which combined with our ability to compete on financial terms will help Kaspersky Lab be a vendor of choice,"

he said.