News

Netskope Predicts Future Middle East Cybersecurity Trends

Experts from Netskope contemplate what’s on the horizon for phishing, ransomware, and other security threats as we approach 2023.

Published

4 years ago

November 28, 2022

Nour Nasir

netskope predicts future middle east cybersecurity trends

Netskope, a global Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) leader, has just revealed the results of its annual investigation into the state of cybersecurity in the Middle East as 2022 comes to an end.

In a region that’s digitizing at a rapid rate, Netskope anticipates several new trends in cyber attacker behavior, as well as a rise in software supply chain attacks and various other cloud vulnerabilities.

“Similar to how we have done this in years past, we have sourced these predictions from across our team of internal experts; our global and regional CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, and the specialists in our Threat Labs. Some of these predictions touch on topics that you may have seen discussed this year, considering how they will evolve, while others feature technologies and dynamics that may be completely new on the radar of Middle Eastern organizations for 2023,” says Jonathan Mepsted, VP for Netskope, Middle East and Africa.

So, what kinds of cyber threats do we expect to see intensifying in 2023? For starters, ransomware and extortion-style scams will be more prolific than ever. In addition, confidential and highly sensitive data will become vulnerable to sophisticated encryption attacks from professional extortion groups such as LAPSUS$ and RansomHouse.

Also Read: How To Find The Best Remote Work Opportunities In The Middle East

As well as a rise in well-known online hacks and scams, Netskope believes that software supply chain attacks will also intensify — especially as we become more accepting of the concept of the “industrial metaverse”. Supply chain automation and optimization are on the rise, but bring a set of unique challenges for security experts.

This year, to be better prepared for emerging trends and threat models, Netskope’s NewEdge infrastructure added five new data centers in the Middle East region, supporting businesses across a wide range of sectors, including finance, telecom, and energy.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.