Qatar enhancing its cyber capabilities with the help of cyber Intelligence firms
Middle-East has been associated with instability and insecurity for a long time given the consistent tensions among the rival countries like Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar. The gulf countries have been involved in various diplomatic and military conflicts at various occasions. The most recent of which has been the GCC countries conflict with Qatar.
The rising tensions have led to rising demand for data surveillances, cyber investigations and even propaganda services in the region.
The rising tensions were both and cause and consequence of Qatar diplomatic blockade by GCC countries, as reports suggest tensions in the region escalated much before generating demands for services of US private investigation firms like Brown Lloyd Jones (now known as BLJ Worldwide, Global Risk Advisors(GRA) and others.
The trajectory of Qatar-Turkey relations has witnessed a steady growth especially in the last few years. The rising tensions in the Middle East and its corresponding effect on cyber safety has led to various countries preparing for honed cyber capabilities while Qatar has found its cyber support from one its most trusted allies, Turkey.
The QNA hacking that could have played an important role in discrediting Qatar on world forum was defended by a major favor done by Turkey to Qatar by detaining five suspects in connection with the hacking of Qatar’s state news agency in May.
The Italian information technology firm, Hacking Team, covertly deals with repressive governments around the world and offers them with surveillance technology. Hacking Team sells software applications that enable ‘interested governments’ to hack into their citizen’s computers, mobile phones, and even their GPS systems to watch over their activities and track them. Amongst the clients were governments of Ethiopia, Morocco, Malaysia, Italy, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Nigeria, Mexico, Oman, Poland, Sudan, etc.
This we can say that QATAR steadily improves their offensive and defensive cyber capabilities to pace up with the ongoing Middle East cyber war.
