Dubai Internet City Official ICT Partner for Middle East's First Black Hat Conference

The Black Hat briefings are a series of highly technical information security (infosec) conferences that bring together leaders from the corporate and government sectors as well as academic and even underground researchers.

From its inception in 1997, Black Hat has grown from a single annual conference in Las Vegas to a global conference series with annual events in Barcelona and Washington DC in the US. The Abu Dhabi edition will mark the event's debut in the Middle East.

The four-day event being held at Emirates Palace will focus on training from 8-9 November while conferences (briefings) are scheduled from 10-11 November.

DIC is the official ICT partner for the convention that aims to bring businesses face to face with high-level and high quality business security buyers from the Middle East, Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Held in partnership with the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and Khalifa University, the event is supported by aeCERT, UAE's computer emergency response team.

Malek Al Malek, Managing Director, Dubai Internet City and Dubai Outsource Zone, said:

"In partnership with Black Hat, DIC will aim to help organisations set the roadmap for a secure future. We have always supported the industry in highlighting the role of security within IT frameworks by working in coordination with IT security companies and industry associations."

DIC has attracted key IT security organizations such as Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky and Trend Micro, which have highlighted the importance of security solutions and services in the region. The demand for such solutions is also on the rise with enterprises and individuals looking to adequately protecting their IT networks.

In the UAE, there were 91,439 infected machines active in September 2010, a leap of 33 per cent in under one year, according to the latest statistics revealed by IT security company Trend Micro. Infected machines in total for the year stand at over 400,000, a growth of 10,000 per cent since 2004.

Across the wider Middle East, Trend Micro has announced there are more than two million infected machines, a 112% rise in the last seven years.

In September 2010, more than 420,000 machines were compromised in Saudi Arabia alone, a jump of over 65 per cent in less than one year.

Established in 2000, Dubai Internet City serves as a business community dedicated to assisting technology companies across the industry value chain to set up business operations in the region. From software developers, Internet and multimedia, as well as networking and telecommunication service providers, DIC currently hosts more than 1,400 companies in the technology business park.