The second day of the international M360 EURASIA was held in Baku, Azerbaijan on May 17. This international event brought together regional and international experts active in the mobile and digital space to discuss key trends, opportunities, and challenges in the industry.
The key part of the second day was the CSO media Roundtable Discussion that was hosted in parallel, where like-minded Cybersecurity thought leaders across Middle East and Central Asia gathered to discuss the latest telecom cybersecurity trends, innovations, and contribute methods to tackle the associated threats among industry actors together. The open discussion, which was held under the theme of “Build more secure and resilient telecom networks to efficiently support the future digital economy”, aimed at aligning strategic priorities for the region, deepening engagement and steering collaborative efforts in the industry to advance collective action for cyber stability in the telecom industry.
As telecommunication has become an integral part of modern society and is recognized as a critical infrastructure industry (CII), it has also become more vulnerable to cyber threats. Given the importance of telecom cybersecurity, it is essential to discuss cybersecurity topics with telecom stakeholders to promote the development and optimization of telecom cybersecurity.
This is what the CSO Roundtable Discussion exactly did - provided an opportunity to wider cover the topic and tackle the arising problems. As such, this CSO Round Table Discussion gave an excellent opportunity for networking, learning and connecting with a regional community dedicated to innovation in cybersecurity.
Dr. Tural Mammadov, Director of the Azerbaijan Computer Emergency Response Center (CERT), was joined in the panel by Dr. Mohammad Khaled, Director of Business Development and Strategic projects at e& enterprise, Dr. Haitham Hilal Al Hajri, Senior Executive of Cyber Security Projects at Oman National CERT, Dr. Elvin Balajanov, Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan Cybersecurity Organization Association and Dr. Aloysius Cheang, Chief Security Officer at Huawei Middle East & Central Asia.
Each of the roundtable’s speakers touched on the crucial topics of contemporary threats and shared their insights and opinion on tackling the arising problems and cybersecurity threats. They all highlighted the importance of collaborations among network operators and their partners, suppliers and customers in protecting telecom cybersecurity, and how regulators could promote local telecom industry’s cybersecurity development.
Taking on an open, transparent and sincere attitude, Huawei, the event's industry sponsor, is willing to work with all governments, customers and partners through various channels to jointly cope with cyber security threats and challenges from cyber security.
“We need to consider how to meet the increasingly strict compliance requirements of regulators on the one hand and how to provide secure and trustworthy products and services that fulfill our commitments to customers on the other. We must also embrace a defense-in-depth approach to provide better security, ensure business continuity, resiliency, improve efficiency and customer experience while always protecting user privacy,” Dr. Aloysius Cheang said in this regard.
Meanwhile, Huawei has been proactively involved in the telecom cyber security standardization activities led by GSMA ITU-T, 3GPP, and IETF etc., and has joined security organizations such asOIC-CERT, FIRST and partnered with mainstream security companies to ensure the cyber security of its customers and promote the healthy development of industries.
Moreover, it is worth noting that consideringthe importance of cyber security, Huawei's main strategy is establishing and constantly optimizing an end-to-end cyber security assurance system. To establish an effective cybersecurity system, it is necessary to consider various factors such as corporate policies, organizational structure, business processes, technology, and standard practices. As a company, Huawei has taken an active approach to addressing cybersecurity challenges. Huawei is committed to ensuring cybersecurity, and, as the company noted, Huawei's commitment to cybersecurity will always take precedence over commercial interests.