Dmitry Volkov highlights how AI-driven threats, predictive security, and real-time fraud intelligence sharing are reshaping the Kingdom’s cybersecurity ecosystem.
Saudi Arabia’s cybersecurity landscape is entering a defining phase, shaped by rapid digital growth, AI-enabled threats, and a nationwide push for stronger cyber resilience. Against this backdrop, Group-IB is deepening its presence in the Kingdom, bringing adversary-centric intelligence, predictive defence capabilities, and new ecosystem-wide fraud prevention technologies to the market.
Dmitry Volkov, CEO of Group-IB, spoke to Daniel Sheperd, Online Editor, Tahawultech.com about how AI-driven cybercrime is reshaping risk, why collaborative defence models are becoming essential, and how the company’s newly launched Cyber Fraud Intelligence Platform (CFIP) is set to transform real-time fraud intelligence sharing across Saudi organisations.
Interview Excerpts:
You’ve been expanding quickly in Saudi Arabia this year. What’s driving demand for Group-IB’s solutions across Saudi enterprises?
Saudi Arabia is a highly mature market, and organisations here know exactly what they want. They are looking for best-in-class technical capabilities that allow them not only to close gaps but to build advanced, service-driven security programmes. Demand for Group-IB stems from our adversary-centric approach and our ability to help enterprises focus on threat factors rather than just raw attacks. Because we conduct deep research on cybercriminal activity across global regions, our technologies allow customers to predict what may happen next and build stronger, more proactive cyber defences.
Looking at 2025 and beyond, what advanced Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) or threat groups are most actively targeting the Kingdom?
It varies by industry, but the overarching trend is clear: AI-enabled cybercrime is becoming the dominant threat. Fraud-focused criminal groups are adopting AI faster than any other segment—particularly video and voice deepfakes, which dramatically increase the success rate of scams. We also see sophisticated cyber attackers using AI to automate reconnaissance, vulnerability identification, and exploitation workflows.
“AI-driven attacks operate at very high speed, so defenders need equally advanced technologies that can match or ideally anticipate the next step in the kill chain.”
If you had to distil it into five points, what actionable threat insights should Saudi CISOs take away from Black Hat MEA 2025?
Shift away from legacy mindsets. Traditional security approaches no longer match the pace and sophistication of modern threats. Adopt collective defence. Saudi enterprises need to collaborate more closely—sharing real-time cyber intelligence, fraud patterns, and threat telemetry.
Unify cyber and fraud operations. Criminals do not distinguish between these domains; defenders should not either.
Prioritise real-time intelligence. Rapid visibility into attacker behaviour is essential for resilience.
Move towards predictive security. AI-driven, behaviour-based modelling is the next frontier for advanced cybersecurity.
Tell us more about the CFIP launch. What technology sits behind it, and how does it solve gaps existing fraud systems cannot?
Every fraud system—behavioural, transactional, or rule-based—inevitably leaves gaps. Organisations increasingly want to share real-time fraud intelligence with banks, fintechs, telcos, regulators, and major e-commerce platforms.
The Cyber Fraud Intelligence Platform (CFIP) solves this by enabling live information exchange while ensuring zero sensitive data ever leaves the organisation.
Group-IB uses a patented tokenisation mechanism that allows entities to compare and correlate fraud signals without exposing personal or regulated data. This achieves two goals simultaneously:
- real-time collaboration across the ecosystem
- full compliance with privacy and data-protection requirements
This is a breakthrough because it bridges a long-standing gap between the need to share intelligence and the need to protect customer information.
How is Group-IB collaborating with Saudi companies and global vendors to build a more unified cybersecurity ecosystem?
We work closely with Saudi regulators, public-sector bodies, and major enterprises, helping strengthen national cyber resilience. Group-IB has built a full technical infrastructure and a local expert team within the Kingdom, ensuring our customers receive in-country expertise and support.
Our full-stack platform integrates across the technologies that organisations have already invested in—whether on-premises or cloud-based—so that existing tools are enhanced rather than replaced. This integrated approach helps automate routine actions, improve operational efficiency, and unify cyber and fraud defence across the ecosystem.
