The UAE Cybersecurity Council and Nozomi Networks announced a strategic collaboration on May 5, 2026, to strengthen cyber resilience across the UAE's critical infrastructure and industrial sectors, with plans to establish a dedicated OT and IoT Innovation and Excellence Center in Abu Dhabi.
Background
In November 2020, the UAE Cabinet established the UAE Cybersecurity Council to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and ensure a safe, robust cyber infrastructure as part of the UAE's vision for a more secure digital transformation. The Council is responsible for building a cybersecurity ecosystem across the UAE through collaboration with industry, academia, and international partners, as well as implementing awareness and capacity-development initiatives.
The UAE's Information Assurance Standard Version 2 (2025) extended cybersecurity requirements to operational technology (OT) and critical infrastructure protection, specifically covering energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors to mitigate cyber-physical threats. The State of the UAE Cybersecurity Report 2025, developed jointly by the UAE Cyber Security Council and cybersecurity firm CPX, reveals that threat actors are increasingly using AI to launch phishing attacks, deploy misinformation at scale, and breach critical infrastructure.
The Nozomi Networks partnership is one of several announced in rapid succession. The UAE Cyber Security Council also joined forces with US-based industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc. to establish an OT Cyber Security Centre of Excellence in the UAE under the Make it in the Emirates initiative. A further memorandum of understanding was signed with Siemens to strengthen OT cybersecurity across the UAE's industrial sectors.
Details
The UAE Cybersecurity Council and Nozomi Networks announced a strategic collaboration to strengthen the cybersecurity resilience of the UAE's critical infrastructure and industrial sectors. The partnership supports the national vision of enhanced cyber resilience across OT and IoT environments through deeper visibility, advanced threat detection, and intelligence-driven security for assets spanning energy, utilities, transportation, manufacturing, and smart infrastructure.
The alliance includes plans to establish an Innovation and Excellence Center (CoE) in Abu Dhabi dedicated to OT and IoT cybersecurity. The center is intended to serve as a national platform to accelerate innovation, enhance resilience, and strengthen industrial cybersecurity readiness. It will also function as a hub for research and development, supporting the creation of advanced solutions and the publication of high-impact research in industrial cybersecurity domains.
H.E. Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government, stated: "Public-private collaboration plays an essential role in advancing cyber resilience, expanding national visibility, and supporting the secure adoption of emerging technologies across critical sectors." Bachir Moussa, EMEA South Vice President at Nozomi Networks, said the company is "honored to collaborate with the UAE Cybersecurity Council to support the protection of cyber-physical systems, share insights on emerging OT and IoT threats, and contribute to initiatives that strengthen national resilience and local cybersecurity expertise."
Dr. Al Kuwaiti separately noted that the broader push to establish Centres of Excellence "comes amid a surge in cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure," adding that these centers "serve as advanced platforms that enable proactive threat anticipation, continuous monitoring, and early detection of cyber incidents, while supporting the development and application of effective defence strategies in real operational environments."
Through its partnership, Dragos will provide a specialized OT environment where professionals can simulate real-world cyberattack and defense scenarios, enhancing expertise in OT and industrial control systems (ICS) security. IBM also announced a collaboration with the Council to establish a joint Innovation Center in Abu Dhabi focused on trusted AI, cyber resilience, governance frameworks, and emerging technologies.
Outlook
As digital transformation accelerates across the nation's industrial and smart city ecosystems, OT and IoT environments have grown increasingly interconnected and exposed to sophisticated cyber threats.1CYSEC UAE 2026 – Cyber Leadership: Powering the Vision of a Smart and Secure Nation! The cluster of OT-focused CoE agreements signals a coordinated policy approach in which the UAE is institutionalizing public-private mechanisms-rather than bilateral vendor contracts alone-as the primary vehicle for building sovereign industrial cyber capability. The UAE's updated Information Assurance Standard integrates vendor assurance controls aligned with ISO 27036 and NIST SP 800-161, acknowledging that supply chain vulnerabilities now pose national-level risks-a regulatory backdrop that operators in energy, manufacturing, and transportation should expect to shape audit and compliance requirements in the near term.
