1AIMICT Newsletter | July 2018

JULY 2018

AIMICT.ORG

AIMICT Newsletter | July 20182

IN THIS ISSUE• AIMICT Organizes Professional Quality Manager Program Course and Exam

• AIMICT and LES-AC Conduct ILM’s “Training of Trainers” Program

• Registration for ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Course & Exam Started

• PQM Examination in August

• Abu-Ghazaleh to Establish Talal Abu-Ghazaleh University College for Innovation Branch in Baghdad

• Projected Cyber-Attacks in 2018 | A Matter of ‘When’, Not ‘If’?

3AIMICT Newsletter | July 2018

AIMICT AND LES-AC CONDUCT ILM’S “TRAINING OF TRAINERS” PROGRAM

AMMAN - The Arab International Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) in collaboration with the Licensing Executives Society - Arab Countries (LES-AC) conducted a Training of Trainer (TOT) course in Amman.

Training of Trainers program aims to provide the participants with the necessary knowledge to understand the importance of training and development to professionals, build a simple training program and session plan, and design and use an assessment tool to analyze the evaluation results and use them in developing the program.

The 30-hour program is accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) – UK and targets trainers, teachers and instructors, co-trainers, and HR staff, and can be given in Arabic and/or English.

AIMICT ORGANIZES PROFESSIONAL QUALITY MANAGER PROGRAM COURSE AND EXAMAMMAN - The Arab International Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) will hold new sessions of the Professional Quality Manager (PQM) course on September 23, 2018 in Amman.

The PQM program aims at providing the participants with the necessary knowledge to implement effective quality practices in quality and strategies implementation frameworks, and develop, promote researches and applications in the field of quality principles and practices.

It addresses a number of important knowledge frameworks such as Essentials of Quality Management, Total Quality Management Tools, Core Concepts of Leadership and People Management, Strategic Planning in Quality Management, Customer Focus for Business Excellence and Supply Chain Management.

The program, accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) - UK, targets companies’ managers, heads of units and departments, quality control officers and professionals seeking to improve their productivity. Those who wish to register should contact the Society’s management and fill the registration application through the following link: http://aimict.org/Certificate_Registration.aspx?title=key_pqm

AIMICT Newsletter | July 20184

REGISTRATION FOR ISO 9001 LEAD AUDITOR COURSE & EXAM STARTED

Registration for the PECB accredited ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Course & Examination is now open. The program is accredited by the Professional Evaluation Certification Board (PECB), in conformity with the newly signed agreement between AIMICT and PECB which will take place in Amman at Talal Abu-Ghazaleh general administration building from the 9th till the 13th of September 2018.

The ISO 9001 Lead Auditor program enables participants to develop the necessary expertise to support an organization in implementing and managing a Quality Management System (QMS) based on ISO 9001.

The five-day course targets companies’ managers, head of units and departments, quality consultants, and quality control officers.

Those who wish to register or willing to know further information on the program should contact the Society’s management through AIMICT email:Info@aimict.com

PQM EXAMINATION IN AUGUSTThe Arab International Society for Management Technology (AIMICT) is holding the Professional Quality Manager (PQM) examinations August 12-14, 2018 for a group of participants from different sectors mainly from Amman.

The PQM exam is accredited by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), and participants must successfully pass the two-session exam in order to acquire the ILM accredited PQM certificate.

5AIMICT Newsletter | July 2018

PROJECTED CYBER-ATTACKS IN 2018 | A MATTER OF ‘WHEN’, NOT ‘IF’?By Ardian Berisha & Albion Bikliqi (PECB)While governments point fingers at each other for failing to detect, prevent and/or effectively respond to attacks, the cyber-crimes are generating far-reaching impacts. The rise in cyber-attacks, as a result of the growth and development of the internet, has created problems for almost every industry worldwide, affecting the US, UK, EU and Russia the most. Based on the most recent reports, cyber-attacks are going to be more destructive in 2018. The continued pressure placed upon organizations to operate with an online presence brings the risk of encountering myriad cyber threats. Information Security and IT teams, therefore, will witness many rapidly evolving threats, and many new, advanced extortionist methods. Richard Ford, a chief scientist at Forcepoint stated that “this has been a tough year, and 2018 is going to be a tougher year”, in terms of cyber-attacks. He claims that the increased digital footprint will further continue to endanger the survival of the organizations because of the lack of awareness and shortfall in technical expertise. Referring to Ford, due to the necessity to keep pace with continually evolving technology, one can expect that the year 2018 will witness a significant rise in phishing emails and email compromise.

What can we expect in 2018?1. More supply chain attacksThese attacks are very advanced and are performed by employing means and tools that are too complex to be detected and responded to. The number of supply chain attacks are expected to increase in 2018, both from the point of discovery and actual attacks.

ABU-GHAZALEH TO ESTABLISH TALAL ABU-GHAZALEH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE FOR INNOVATION BRANCH IN BAGHDADAMMAN- HE Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh received in his office President of Al-Bayan University Prof. Mohammed Al-Ameri to follow up on procedures for the establishment of a branch for Talal Abu-Ghazaleh University College for Innovation (TAGUCI) at Al-Bayan Headquarters in Baghdad. During Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s visit to Baghdad last April, an agreement was signed to establish a branch for TAGUCI in Baghdad; therefore, the two parties discussed implementation mechanisms as well as the programs and curricula of the Business and Information Technology specialties to be offered by the College.

Dean of TAGUCI Dr. Muntaha Bani Hani will follow up the implementations with Al-Bayan University.

It’s worth mentioning that the partnership with Al-Bayan University is one of other partnerships which TAGUCI is carrying out along with its partnerships in the United Arab Emirates and Ramallah in Palestine.

AIMICT Newsletter | July 20186

2. Increase of high-end mobile malware.According to a report by Kaspersky Lab, the total number of mobile malwares are higher than it is reported due to the shortcomings in telemetry. This report estimated that in 2018, there will be more high-end APT malwares successfully exposed, due to the increase in these types of attacks and the use of more sophisticated technologies to detect them.

3. Crisis in e-commerce identityIn the past few years, we had an increase in the large-scale breaches of personally identifiable information (PII). Equifax, which took place in 2017, is the example that best illustrates PII breaches, where approximately 145, 5 million Americans were affected and had their personal information exposed. This type of attack is expected to increase in 2018 with targets being some of the most prominent and large companies in the world.

4. Increased router and modem hacksRouters and modems, in either homes or companies, tend to be vulnerable to attack. We are aware that they are everywhere, they are very important for our daily basis operations, and they tend to run parts of software that is unpatched and left vulnerable. The number of attacks are expected to vastly increase in 2018.

How to prepare your organizations for 2018Enterprises need to prepare today to recover from or prevent potential cyber fraud in the future. But, how do we detect and/or prevent these cyber-attackers that seek to profit by targeting businesses and deceiving victims into providing access to vulnerabilities?

There are a few key steps companies and IT Security teams can take:• Assess the capabilities of your staff, infrastructure, and processes to ensure they are prepared when

threats are present• Conduct an IT Risk Assessment• Ensure that staff receives training and is aware of the cyber-threats• Secure your network• Secure your websites• Conduct a Business Impact Analysis in regards to data security• Create a proper contingency and disaster recovery plan for different cyber-attack scenarios

Once the organization has promoted awareness on specific causes of cyber-attacks, it has conducted proper staff training sessions, and it has established infrastructure to support the organization’s network, the cybersecurity program should be prepared for responding to potential threats emerging during 2018. Information Security and IT Security teams, however, should constantly seek to identify and employ other protective countermeasures. At the end of the day, hackers don’t play by a set of rules; thus, it is only through a spreading of awareness on the need to secure the networks that aggregate security across all businesses. Enterprises should at a minimum, perform an annual assessment with a group of ethical hackers to closely simulate a real attack. Doing this assessment, business owners are provided with feedback in how to shape and develop their responses to the ever-changing threats of cyber attackers.

AIMICT provides training and certification services for ISO/IEC 27032 Cybersecurity which prepares you for these types of attacks. For more information, please visit:www.aimict.org

7AIMICT Newsletter | July 2018

For more informationThe Arab International Society for Management Technology Majd Farahat - Executive DirectorTel: (0962-6) 5100900- 1315Fax: (0962-6) 5100901info@aimict.org AIMICT.org

This newsletter is published by:The Arab International Society for Management Technology©AIMICT 2018Reproduction is permitted providedThat the source is acknowledged