Twenty percent of MENA businesses have experienced more than three security breaches in the past 12 months as regional government and business firms are not taking web threats seriously, according to a top IT executive.

“According to our recent survey, Saudi Arabia has a serious 18 percent infection rate in the region. At the same time the UAE has one of the highest infection rates in the region with over 34 percent,” Ihab Moawad, Trend Micro vice president for Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa told Arab News on the sidelines of Gitex.

“But these figures should not mislead that the UAE is infected more than Saudi Arabia. The reason is that we have more customers in the UAE than Saudi Arabia,” he added.

Malware, which refers to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software, accounts for 70 percent of the security breaches.

“Getting the right Internet security solutions is the first step to protecting ourselves. We have seen alarming lapses in security across the region. Over the last six months we surveyed huge number of customers from different sectors and we found that these customers have affected terribly. Many of them said they have affected many times during the last 12 months,” he said.

“The good sign is that many customers are more aware about virus and malware and they are ready to admit their problems as they understand security is vital and data is important,” he added.

“The mindset is changing. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have started adopting additional security measures due to frequent attacks,” Moawad said.

When asked about the attacks and hackers, he said most of the attackers are coming from Russia.

“Some hackers do it for money while some others do it for political reasons. However, globally, 90,000 attacks are being recorded everyday,” he added.

“Hackers have changed their operation style, it is not like before. These days they create specific malware/virus for each organizations whom they target. Before, hackers were sending general virus to all,” he explained.

Trend Micro survey revealed that 10 percent of businesses are worried about insider attacks here in the region. Data loss remains the number one concern, with 26 percent citing this as the main security concern, followed closely by infections from emails at 25 percent. Whereas concern for threats from hackers was only eight percent.

“The visible infections in the region continue to grow year-on-year. As we become more dependent on the web, threats will only increase. We must educate ourselves and be better protected because the consequences are more than what individuals and businesses can afford,” Moawad added.