At Black Hat MEA 2025.. Fortinet Showcases Advanced Cybersecurity Innovations
Fortinet is participating in Black Hat MEA 2025 with one of its most advanced cybersecurity portfolios, reflecting the rapidly evolving regional threat landscape.As organizations accelerate digital transformation and adopt AI-driven technologies,Fortinet is demonstrating how the Fortinet Security Fabric delivers end-to-end protection across every edge, reinforcing the need for cybersecurity strategies that evolve with modern threats.
At the event, Fortinet is spotlighting key technologies including Sovereign Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), advanced cloud security offerings, unified cloud-native platforms, and AI-powered Security Operations (SecOps).The company is also showcasing FortiCloud to enhance visibility and reduce operational complexity, along with solutions such as FortiAI, FortiRecon,and FortiDeceptor that support early attack detection and stronger SOC performance.
Digital Transformation
Saudi Arabia continues to experience accelerated digital growth driven by Vision 2030, smart city initiatives, and expanding cloud adoption. This transformation is supported by a unified cloud-native platform.
Sami AlShwairakh, Regional Senior Director for Saudi Arabia at Fortinet, stated to Riyadh Daily that integrating AI-driven cybersecurity into the Kingdom’s digital infrastructure is essential to enabling this rapid expansion, noting that Fortinet’s technologies are designed to strengthen resilience and support advanced, interconnected systems.
Sami AlShwairakh, Regional Senior Director for Saudi Arabia at Fortinet
Critical Infrastructure
Fortinet plays a significant role in securing essential national sectors such as energy, healthcare, finance, and education. The company aligns its technologies with the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) frameworks, ensuring full compliance with local standards while supporting stakeholders in addressing evolving cyber risks.It also contributes to building national cyber capabilities through training initiatives targeting students, professionals, and specialized teams, supporting long-term resilience across the Kingdom’s digital environment.
National Cyber Capacity
Fortinet continues to strengthen cybersecurity awareness and capability in the Kingdom through university partnerships, graduate programs, and specialized training initiatives. While the exact number of participating institutions is not specified, these programs play a central role in supporting Vision 2030 and preparing a future-ready national cybersecurity workforce.
Skills Gap in Saudi Arabia
Vision 2030 continues to accelerate the Kingdom’s digital transformation, increasing the need for skilled cybersecurity professionals. According to the Fortinet Global Skills Gap Report 2025, more than half of respondents identified the lack of IT security skills as a key contributor to security breaches. Fortinet supports national efforts to close this gap through the Saudi Cybersecurity Workforce Development Program and long-term investments in talent and infrastructure, having positioned the Kingdom as a strategic regional hub since 2012.
The company is committed to training one million individuals globally by 2026 through the Fortinet Training Institute, offering awareness, AI-driven cybersecurity training, and certification tracks. In Saudi Arabia, it collaborates with the Ministry of Education and the NCA to expand cybersecurity awareness across educational levels, including a dedicated cybersecurity curriculum for elementary schools translated into Arabic and adopted by private institutions.
Data Sovereignty
Sovereign SASE provides organizations with strong data sovereignty controls by ensuring that all sensitive data is stored and processed within approved geographic boundaries. This platform enables secure access for distributed users and applications while ensuring full alignment with Saudi Arabia’s strict regulatory and compliance requirements.
The Global Cybersecurity Landscape
Cyber threats are growing rapidly in scale and sophistication, driven by automation, AI, and increasingly industrialized cybercrime ecosystems. The 2026 Cyberthreat Predictions Report highlights that future cybersecurity success will depend on how quickly intelligence can be converted into action.FortiGuard Labs anticipates further automation in offensive operations through agentic AI models, requiring defenders to adopt predictive intelligence, automated response, and exposure management to stay ahead of evolving adversaries.
Protecting Operational Technology (OT)
Fortinet plays a significant role in strengthening the protection of Operational Technology environments across vital sectors. The rise of OT cybersecurity awarenessin the C-suite reflects how mission-critical these environments have become. As organizations advance their OT security maturity, they experience fewer impacts from intrusions through stronger visibility, segmentation, and integrated SecOps practices. A key factor contributing to improved protection is the consolidation of OT security vendors into unified platforms, which has been shown to reduce cyber incidents by up to 93%. Fortinet’s OT-focused solutions support essential sectors including manufacturing,logistics,oil and gas, energy and utilities,healthcare,chemical industries, and water and wastewater operations.
Strengthening SOC Performance
The Security Operations Center (SOC) plays a critical role in monitoring infrastructure, identifying threats, and coordinating incident response. Fortinet enhances SOC performance through integrated tools such as FortiAI for faster AI-driven threat detection,FortiRecon for attack surface management, and FortiDeceptor for early attacker containment using deception-based techniques.
Fortinet concludes its participation by emphasizing the importance of collaboration, innovation, and knowledge exchange in building a resilient regional cybersecurity ecosystem.The company reaffirms its commitment to supporting Saudi Arabia’s digital advancement with AI-powered, integrated cybersecurity solutions designed to meet the needs of one of the world’s fastest-growing cyber markets.
