Bachir Moussa, AVP EMEA, Nozomi Networks, in conversation with Techitup ME, shares how Nozomi Networks is driving unified visibility across OT, IoT & IT environments, AI-powered protection, and critical infrastructure resilience in the Middle East
Can you tell us about your GISEC 2025 presence and highlights?
Thank you so much for your time. GISEC has always been close to our hearts at Nozomi Networks and personally for me as well. We had a strong presence this year with our own booth in Hall – 2, within the critical infrastructure zone of GISEC, allowing us to independently engage with our customers and partners. Additionally, we were also present with one of our key partners, Help AG at Hall 7. So, this year was quite special for us with a dual presence and that reflects our deep investment and commitment to GISEC as well as the Cybersecurity ecosystem in the UAE.
How is Nozomi Networks helping critical infrastructure operators in the Middle East strengthen their OT and ICS cybersecurity posture?
Our mission has always been to protect critical infrastructure. There’s something special that Nozomi Networks did, which gave us an edge in the Middle East. We came early and invested into the Middle East even before there was even any return on investment. We didn’t look at the Middle East as just a market, instead we looked at the Middle East as a region where we could set up a strategic base to build from and safeguard.
Currently we have a strong team of about 17 professionals in the Middle East. We are closely working with our prospects and customers to ensure that they have the right protection when it comes to ICS, IT, OT and all the integration together. The Middle East is one place where we have always invested, nurtured partnerships and we will continue that growth by hiring more skilled professionals in the region.
How can organizations gain full-spectrum protection for their OT, IoT, IT, and now wireless assets?
We always look at anything we do in life as a journey. When Nozomi Networks started, it was very specific to OT and protecting the OT environments within organizations. But then, that was obviously not enough as we saw more and more of IoT evolving and expanding into the world. We enhanced our offerings by providing security not just for OT but IoT on the same platform. Then the approach also changed. Initially our approach was only passive monitoring, but now we focus on a combination of passive and active techniques through our ARC agent to help with this active engagement.
We have actively covered what’s on the wire, so anything that’s happening on the wire in the environment, we’re providing support and the security for it. What was left was the wireless, and our R&D team embarked on a journey about 18 to 24 months ago to start developing an in-house solution to help our customers with their wireless security. When you look at Zigbee, LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi, that’s all part of wireless. So now we provide the full spectrum of comprehensive solutions across the wired and wireless, to help emerging use cases coming up in the world.
How does Nozomi Networks leverage AI and machine learning for real-time anomaly detection in industrial systems?
Yes, everyone’s talking about AI. Something that really helped us was that one of our Co-founders had a PhD in AI when he founded Nozomi Networks. So AI and ML were embedded into the DNA of Nozomi Networks from inception. With regards to anomaly detection, Zero Day attack detection and other predictive analytics, they are all powered through ML and AI. This helps reduce the manual work required by people and uses the intelligence of ML and AI to provide visibility and protection.
As IT and OT environments continue to converge, how does Nozomi provide unified visibility and risk management across both domains?
This is one of the biggest shifts that we are witnessing in the cybersecurity industry. It’s important for an organization to understand what’s happening across the horizon within these environments. That’s where we come in to provide visibility across the OT, IoT and IT. But I want to answer the question in a different way. It’s not just about technology; it’s about the people. As Nozomi Networks, we have been involved in a number of occasions, where we actually brought the IT and the OT teams together. We brought the teams together because of our appreciation of the OT environment and also being able to speak to the IT security managers and the CISOs. So, it’s not just our platform that merges OT & IT environments, but also our people help merge the IT and the OT people to come and work together.
