In this exclusive interaction with The Catalyst, Abdullah Mohammad Khorami, Chief Business Officer at Salam, shares insights on the company’s positioning at Black Hat MEA 2025, its Zero Trust philosophy, and the unified cybersecurity vision supporting the Kingdom’s digital future.
How is Salam positioning itself at Black Hat MEA 2025, and what makes your cybersecurity offering different?
Salam’s presence at Black Hat MEA 2025 reinforces our position as a strategic cybersecurity player delivering a unified, end-to-end cybersecurity ecosystem. Our four pillars—defensive security, offensive security, GRC, and cyber awareness—are integrated to give enterprises a seamless, resilient foundation for secure growth.
What truly differentiates Salam is that our ecosystem is designed and built in Saudi, by Saudis, in partnership with leading global and local cybersecurity organizations. This gives us a strategic advantage: globally benchmarked capabilities that are natively aligned with Saudi regulations, market needs, and national ambitions.
Our portfolio covers the full security lifecycle, from assessments and compliance to real-time defence and workforce upskilling, positioning Salam as a long-term partner for reducing complexity, enhancing resilience, and enabling secure digital transformation at scale for our clients.
Our slogan, ‘Smarter securities for stronger businesses,’ reflects our mission. In a market where threats have risen by 35% and cybersecurity demand is expanding at 10–15% annually, unified and intelligent security is no longer optional but rather a critical enabler of business continuity and sustainable growth
You have described Zero Trust as foundational in an AI-driven world. What does this mean for enterprises?
As enterprises adopt AI, cloud, and automation, the traditional security perimeter aspect disappears. Data, users, and workloads now move dynamically across environments, which makes Zero Trust a foundational business requirement rather than a technical feature. At its core, Zero Trust means continuous verification—every user, device, and connection must constantly validate its identity and intent.
For enterprises, Salam operationalizes Zero Trust through our unified security ecosystem: identity-led access, endpoint validation, micro-segmentation, and real-time monitoring. This framework gives organizations the confidence to scale AI adoption, knowing that the data fuelling their models remains secure and governed.
In an AI-driven environment where workloads depend on massive datasets, a single unseen vulnerability can create disproportionate risk. Zero Trust ensures that access is limited to the right people at the right time, protecting operations, safeguarding customer trust, and enabling sustainable long-term growth.
How does Salam’s cybersecurity strategy support the Kingdom’s national ambitions?
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 sets a bold agenda for digital leadership, and world-class cybersecurity is fundamental to achieving it. At Salam we are proud to contribute to this national priority through a unified cybersecurity ecosystem—defensive and offensive security, GRC, and cyber awareness—designed and built in the Kingdom by Saudi talent in collaboration with global experts.
This approach reinforces Vision 2030’s priorities of developing national capabilities, strengthening local cybersecurity readiness, and securing the digital foundations of a diversified economy. As cyberattacks rise and digital transformation accelerates, Salam enables enterprises to meet these pressures with resilience: enhancing compliance, managing risk, and protecting the data and infrastructure that power national growth.
By combining local expertise with global best practices, Salam delivers a Saudi-built, globally benchmarked cybersecurity platform that empowers both public and private sectors to operate securely and confidently as the Kingdom advances its digital future.
How does Salam help organizations navigate regulatory complexity and governance requirements?
Regulatory complexity is one of the most significant challenges facing organizations today, especially as digital transformation accelerates. This is where Salam delivers meaningful business value. Our GRC services provide a comprehensive governance and compliance framework—including risk and maturity assessments, audits, policy development, gap analysis, third-party risk management, business continuity planning, and vCISO support for organizations that lack internal expertise.
With many companies in the Kingdom reporting shortages in GRC talent—and 85% planning to upgrade their frameworks by 2025—Salam helps bridge this gap through structured governance programs and extensive cyber awareness training. Because human behavior remains the leading cause of breaches, these programs strengthen organizational resilience and materially reduce risk.
Our objective is clear: to help customers navigate regulatory requirements with confidence while building a security culture that enables long-term growth, operational continuity, and sustained trust from investors and customers.
As the Kingdom accelerates toward an AI-driven, digitally empowered future, Salam’s unified cybersecurity ecosystem stands as a critical enabler of resilience, trust and sustainable growth. By aligning global best practices with Saudi-built innovation, the company is helping enterprises navigate rising threats, regulatory demands and the complexities of large-scale digital transformation. With a Zero Trust vision, intelligence-led protection, national capability building, and a suite of next-generation solutions, Salam continues to advance the region’s digital infrastructure and support the Kingdom’s ambition to lead the global digital economy.
About the Contributor
Abdullah Mohammad Khorami is a seasoned business leader driving commercial growth and strategic expansion as the Chief Business Officer at Salam. With extensive experience across telecom, technology, and enterprise solutions, he has led high-impact initiatives that strengthen market presence and accelerate revenue performance. Known for his forward-looking approach and strong partner ecosystem development, Abdullah plays a pivotal role in shaping Salam’s customer-centric transformation. His leadership is defined by a commitment to innovation, operational excellence, and delivering measurable value to clients across the Kingdom.
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