Friday 02 / May / 2025
Muscat: In a pivotal cybersecurity seminar hosted by Crowe Oman, one of Oman's premier audit and advisory firms, the spotlight was firmly placed on the Central Bank of Oman's (CBO) circular on Cybersecurity & Resilience Framework. Alongside, the Capital Market Authority's (CMA) Information System Guidelines took center stage, drawing attention from industry professionals.
Davis Kallukaran, Managing Partner of Crowe, emphasized the staggering financial toll of cybercrime, projected to skyrocket to $10.5 trillion by 2025 from an estimated $1 trillion in 2020. Beyond direct financial losses, cyberattacks can unleash a cascade of repercussions, including lost productivity, legal entanglements, and reputational harm.
The impact can be significant and far-reaching. It can cause physical damage to infrastructure, such as power grids, transportation systems, and telecommunications networks. The 2015 cyber-attack on Ukraine's power grid caused widespread power outages that affected over 225,000 people. The 2017 Equifax data breach resulted in the theft of personal information, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses; of over 143 million people they can also disrupt critical services, such as healthcare, financial systems, and emergency services.
State-sponsored cyber warfare can also have political consequences and can be used to influence elections, undermine political institutions, and spread disinformation. The US dept of Justice has announced a $10 million reward for information on threat actors targeting US critical infrastructure. Davis continued, “If at all a world war breaks out, the weaponry will not be arms and ammunitions, but, a cyber war.”
“Crowe Oman aims to enhance the defence and resilience of organisations by launching the Security operation centre services in Oman to address the compliance requirements of CBO framework on Cybersecurity and Resilience, which are to be implemented by July 2024 and the external audit is to be completed by September 2024 and report to CBO by December 2024. Security operations (SecOps) is a crucial component of an effective security management programme to defend IT systems from attack by identifying threats to help security and risk management leaders increase business resilience by response planning, and risk prioritisation remarked Paul Kallukaran, Senior Manager heading the technology practice at Crowe in his opening remarks.
Speaking on the occasion Anand Veermani, Senior Vice President and India and the Middle East Sales head at Happiest Minds Technologies LTD, said. “We are an NSE-listed company headquartered in Bangalore, India with operations in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Middle East. In Oman we have strategically partnered with Crowe Oman, to provide services, enabling digital transformation for enterprises and Infrastructure Management & Security Services (IMSS),” he added.
Happiest Minds has been recognised for its excellence in Corporate Governance practices by Golden Peacock and ICSI, said Muzeeb Rehman Sheikh, GRC consultant with Crowe.
Paul Kallukaran. Proposed the vote of thanks and thanked Priya Kanduri, CTO, Anand Kumar, Senior Director and Qamar Masoud, head of practice, OT security who had engaged the audience in the sessions on CS &Resilience framework, SOC, IOT& OT security. "The seminar was attended by Cyber security and IT professionals from Banking, NBFC, Power companies and other listed entities," Paul said.
