(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

The UAE faces more than 200,000 cyberattacks every day, with three emirates – Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah – facing nearly 60 per cent of these attacks.

While giving presentation at the Gitex Global 2025 on Thursday, data by Dr Mohammed Al Kuwaiti, head of cyber security for the UAE government, showed that Dubai sees the highest number of attacks at 21 per cent, followed by Abu Dhabi (19 per cent), Sharjah (18 per cent), Ras Al Khaimah (12 per cent), Fujairah (15 per cent), Ajman (9 per cent) and Umm Al Quwain (6 per cent).

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More than one-third – 34.9 per cent – of these cyberattacks are targeted at government entities, 21.3 per cent at financial firms, 14 per cent at energy entities, 11.6 per cent at insurance companies, 6.7 per cent at healthcare enterprises, and 4.8 per cent at IT services among others.

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Importantly, the UAE successfully repels these cyberattacks targeting different public and private sector entities.

Data showed that the average attack duration targeted at the UAE is much less than the global average. According to the UAE Cybersecurity Council, the average cyberattack duration is 18.53 minutes compared to 60 minutes globally.

But the average cost of a data breach in the Middle East was much higher than the global average in 2024. In the region, it is around $7.92 million as against $4.88 million globally.

“Cyber threats are evolving faster than the world's enterprises and entities can adapt their defences,” Al Kuwaiti said, adding that a private healthcare facility was targeted by a dangerous ransomware attack, resulting in approximately 8 terabytes of data exfiltrated.

“Technology will always continue to evolve with us. With those new technologies, there is a new vulnerability,” he said, noting that cyber threats will impact the economy, national security, and society.“We always send this message of having a cyber culture across society. Our goal is to anticipate, to predict and to really plan to counter those attacks,” he said while speaking on the topic of“Cyber Resilience 2030: People, Policy & AI at the Core of National Security.

Global losses from cyberattacks totalled $10.5 trillion in 2024 and are expected to rise to $15.6 trillion by 2029.

The UAE cybersecurity chief added that a cyber drill was conducted with 133-plus countries to enhance global partnership.

“We are building that deterrence and collaboration in many of those aspects. Cyber culture is an important aspect of our lives; we need to really have this as an integral part of our DNA,” he said.

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