Cybercrime costs governments and businesses trillions of dollars every year. But it costs some more than others.

In 2023, cybercrime in the Middle East cost just over $8 million (€7.2 million) per incident, according to research funded by IBM that looked into data breaches in 16 countries. That puts Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — where the IBM study focussed — second in the world when it comes to this kind of financial damage.

Additionally the costs of cybercrime in the UAE and Saudi Arabia has been going up for years now. In 2018, the same annual study reported that the average cost of a cyberattack there was only $5.31 million.

It's important to see the increase in the context of the countries' growing e-commerce sector and ever-increasing internet penetration, which means more locals are online than ever. But according to the relevant ministries in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, they should be well protected.

The International Telecommunications Union, or ITU, a specialized United Nations agency, regularly publishes a ranking of global cybersecurity capacity and in the most recent rankings from 2020, Saudi Arabia and UAE are right at the top.

However, experts point out, the rankings are based on information the ITU gets from the countries themselves and although cybersecurity is increasingly seen as important in the region, there could well be gaps between what the Gulf states' policies say and how they actually work.

"The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are doing extremely well in terms of........

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