Introduction
In the UAE, states are spending more and more on information and communication technology (ICTs). The Internet is now irreversibly active in social development, finance, government institutions, universities and clinics throughout the region. Simultaneously, the position of ICTs has become an important part of the future of the UAE’s national and international security infrastructure, stressing the need to establish efficient regional cybersecurity. The most of international military forces have established cyberwarfare technologies and policies, resulting in further states gaining this potential soon. In leveraging cyber weaknesses, non-state actors have also been extremely proficient. This climate poses concerns about the developments in cyber-warfare and cyber-offensive techniques, the adequacy of current global humanitarian rules regarding aggression in cyberspace, as well as the related roles of nations and global organizations to handle the issues. In this respect, it is important to analyze and resolve the main challenges in the four areas of cyber stability in the UAE, such as cyberterrorism, cybercrime, the threat to nuclear security, and economics.
The Fresh Cyber Age in the UAE
Government agencies, companies, and individual people in the UAE are embracing emerging connected technology and applications on a large scale in a trend described as digitization. As such, millions of personal users entered cyberspace and social media sites in 2010 in UAE region. As per the statistics, social networks, and online technologies, they played a vital position in the 2010 revolt, deeply impacting regional strategy. Consequently, these social networking platforms created an incentive for citizens in the region to connect and build online networks. They increased the prevalence and reach of cyber threats, cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, ransomware, information espionage, and privacy breaches. The worse result of this rise in Online violence is that the “Network crashes on our watch.” In this context, the expenses that might arise due to the perpetrator’s actions and the simultaneous effect of expanded regulatory oversight over the Internet may escalate to the extent where individuals and organizations limit their usage of the Internet.
Roadmap of Obstacles and Challenges
As per the 2014 survey, cyber-crime is expected to cost the world economy 400 billion dollars per year. The optimistic estimation is that damages are at least US$375 billion, and some analysts suggest that they could be as much as US$575 billion. El-Guindy suggests that the UAE is an attractive destination for several cyber attackers in terms of financial benefit due to the lack of knowledge for many ICT consumers, the lack of technological expertise and relevant laws, and the existence of cash.8 Moreover, cyber attackers target places with weak or non-existent legislation to carry out their cyber monetary threats. The latest accounts of assaults on banks in the area demonstrate the damaging impact that cyber-attacks may have on the domestic and global economies.
The Digital Economy and World Trade
As with regional and local commerce, so is global trade. Due to the exponential growth of new technologies, the current environment has a distinct path to international trade. As emerging innovations became more affordable, data transmission costs have declined dramatically, and revenues have improved. Information and digital resources may now be digitally transmitted. Simultaneously, nearly all company operations depend on electronic management, such as order tracking details, inventory reports, or employee details. Organizational information can either be transmitted within an organization or between businesses and on occasions, a third-party data processor is utilized to allow such exchanges. Individuals and companies are creating faster means of enabling global digital transactions. A universal technique of controlling the vast number of cross-border information transmissions is therefore required.
Cybercrime
When there is no energy, nothing in a nation will function, and this will be catastrophic. Financial firms and transport may also be targeted, as has previously occurred in the region. Regarding the regional dangers, the UAE is reliant on the gas and oil sectors. This would cause severe damage to their economies and national security. Although there has not yet been a significant cause of cyberterrorism, all stakeholders must recognize that, as the World wide web is becoming more common in all aspects of society, people and terrorist organizations can exploit the privacy of cyberspace to target individuals, particular groups, institutions, and whole nations without the inherent danger of arrest or damage to them. Terrorists would also soon be able to address ICT weaknesses to create severe harm to civilians.
Constraints and Limitations: Domestic and Foreign Policy and Regulation
In reaction to the above-described scenarios, governments in the UAE could impose additional cyberspace restrictions that further partition the World Wide Web and could facilitate the violation of fundamental human rights. For instance, growing government cyber-tracking and surveillance technologies and the ability to filter or close down social networking sites and Internet access disrupt human privileges and civil rights. Likewise, amid developments in security infrastructure and software defense techniques, the rise of cyber-attacks since 2010 has undermined the power of government entities to secure systems. Specific hackers will still find a way to target networks and keep one step ahead of the technology built to secure them, even with drastic implications for states, enterprises, and individuals.
Cyber Legislation
In the war against the emerging cyber challenge, regulation is an essential element. In the UAE, cyber law in most states is either at a preliminary phase or underactive growth. By implementing standard jurisdictional steps involving judicial, administrative, and civil legislation, lawmakers in the region will deal with cyber-crime concerns. However, tailoring laws directly to cope with cybercrime could be more effective. Therefore, the UAE should take crucial measures to enforce cybercrime legislation or to implement unique systems.
Conclusion
Cyber protection is a modern threat related to the UAE’s other political issues, like the crucial socio-economic problems, multinational and international terrorism, education, understanding, and capacity building. The transition in the form of cybercrime has been seen in recent cyber-attacks in the area. Persons, non-state actors, and cybercriminals become more advanced and organized in episodes covering various fields. This may involve financial assaults on the private industry, politically driven assaults on the state, deliberately orchestrated attacks to steal intellectual property, and cyber threats on a particular population category, including women.
The broad spectrum of cyber risk underlines the need for a proactive national cybersecurity strategy. Many countries in the area have begun efforts to improve their skills and processes for cyber defense. The UN should also play a role in fostering dialog on ICT protection and establishing shared understandings in the implementation of global law and standards in the area. At the same time, governments have the critical duty to ensure a stable ICT setting. It can enable Countries in the region to strengthen their ICT resources, develop strategies and the cybersecurity system, and further develop their capabilities. The UAE can contribute to a cultural heritage of international cybersecurity that enhances a pervasive understanding of global humanitarian law and standards for the nonviolent use of cyber technology by all government entities.
Bibliography
Al-Karaki, Jamal N., Amjad Gawanmeh, and Sanaa El-Yassami. “Gosafe: On the Practical Characterization of the Overall Security Posture of an Organization Information System Using Smart Auditing and Ranking.” Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences (2020): 6-11
Aydin, F., and O. T. Pusatli. “Cyber-Attacks and Preliminary Steps in Cyber Security in National Protection.” Cyber Security and Threats, 2018, 213-229.
Bharathi, S. Vijayakumar. “Prioritizing and Ranking the Big Data Information Security Risk Spectrum.” Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management 18, no. 3 (2017): 183-201.
Dogan-Akkas, Betul. “The Uae’s Foreign Policymaking in Yemen: From Bandwagoning to Buck-Passing.” Third World Quarterly (2020): 1-19.
Fidler, David P. “Cybersecurity and the New Era of Space Activities.” Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, April 2018 (2018): 1-8
Gourisetti, Sri Nikhil Gupta, Michael Mylrea, and Hirak Patangia. “Cybersecurity Vulnerability Mitigation Framework Through Empirical Paradigm: Enhanced Prioritized Gap Analysis.” Future Generation Computer Systems 105 (2020): 410-431.
Gunduz, Muhammed Zekeriya, and Resul Das. “Cyber-security on Smart Grid: Threats and potential solutions.” Computer networks 169 (2020): 107094.
Gupta, Ruchika, Rakesh Kumar Phanden, Shubham Sharma, Priyank Srivastava, and Prateek Chaturvedi. “Security in Manufacturing Systems in the Age of Industry 4.0: Pitfalls and Possibilities.” Advances in Industrial and Production Engineering: Select Proceedings of FLAME 2020 (2021): 105.
Lezzi, Marianna, Mariangela Lazoi, and Angelo Corallo. “Cybersecurity for Industry 4.0 in the Current Literature: A Reference Framework.” Computers in Industry 103 (2018): 97-110.
Mantha, Bharadwaj RK, and Borja Garcia de Soto. “Cyber Security Challenges and Vulnerability Assessment in the Construction Industry.” In Creative Construction Conference 2019, 29-37. Budapest: Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 2019.
Mantha, Bharadwaj RK, Yeojin Jung, and Borja Garcia De Soto. “Implementation of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System to Assess the Cyber Vulnerability in Construction Projects.” In Creative Construction e-Conference 2020, 117-124. Budapest: Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 2020.
Maschmeyer, Lennart, Ronald J. Deibert, and Jon R. Lindsay. “A Tale of Two Cybers-How Threat Reporting by Cybersecurity Firms Systematically Underrepresents Threats to Civil Society.” Journal of Information Technology & Politics (2020): 1-20.
Neshenko, Nataliia, Elias Bou-Harb, Jorge Crichigno, Georges Kaddoum, and Nasir Ghani. “Demystifying IoT security: an exhaustive survey on IoT vulnerabilities and a first empirical look on internet-scale IoT exploitations.” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 21, no. 3 (2019): 2702-2733.
Reuter, Markus A. “Digitalizing the Circular Economy.” Metallurgical and Materials transactions B 47, no. 6 (2016): 3194-3220.