At the edge of the Rub’ al Khali desert, beyond the horizon of Oman’s oil fields and Saudi Arabia’s solar farms, unmanned infrastructure sits in silence. From pipelines snaking through sand to isolated warehouses on the outskirts of industrial zones in the UAE, these remote facilities are lifelines for economies—but also prime targets for disruption.
In the Middle East, where energy, logistics, and industrial expansion power national visions, protecting these sites is a matter of national resilience. And yet, the challenge is uniquely difficult: how do you secure what you cannot constantly see, staff, or touch?
“It’s not just about keeping these facilities safe; it’s about how fast you can respond when something goes wrong,” says Simon Whitehouse, CSyP, Divisional Director of Security Consulting at AESG. A veteran of physical and cyber risk management in the Gulf, Whitehouse paints the picture plainly: critical infrastructure in the Middle East is increasingly remote, digitized, and targeted.
Across the region, from Saudi Aramco’s sprawling oil pipelines to DEWA’s remote solar plants in the UAE desert, operators are deploying layered security solutions—but even these are under constant strain.
“Deterrence, detection, and response need to work as one,” Whitehouse explains. “It starts with the basics—robust fencing, tamper-proof access control, surveillance systems that don’t just record but alert.” But these are merely the surface. The real complexity lies in the invisible layers: network segmentation, AI-powered analytics, and hybrid security orchestration between man and machine.
In one example from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a regional energy provider experienced a multi-vector intrusion attempt that started with a drone scanning a facility perimeter and was followed by a brute-force attack on a remote maintenance VPN. The incident was contained, but it showcased how physical and cyber threats are now tightly intertwined.
This convergence, says Osama Al-Zoubi, MEA Vice President at Phosphorus, is where many companies in the Middle East stumble. “Remote sites need joined-up physical and cyber security. Too often, plant and office networks are interconnected without safeguards. That’s an open invitation to attackers.”
Al-Zoubi advocates for a safe middle zone between OT (Operational Technology) and IT systems, tightly controlled vendor access, and relentless inventory hygiene. “Keep a live list of all devices, change default passwords, patch firmware—these aren’t just IT tasks. In the Middle East, where industrial OT environments are often fast-evolving, these gaps are ripe for exploitation.”
But while attackers evolve, so too does defense. The Middle East is rapidly becoming a testbed for autonomous security. Drones now patrol the perimeters of solar arrays in the UAE. Ground robots roam Ras Al Khaimah’s industrial zones. In Saudi Arabia, AI-driven video analytics detect anomalous behavior and alert central command centers in real-time.
“Automation is fantastic—for coverage, for fatigue reduction—but it can’t replace human judgment,” says Whitehouse. The danger, he notes, lies in automation blindness, where organisations assume smart systems are foolproof. They’re not. “Drones don’t get tired, but they don’t understand context. They might detect movement, but only a human understands if it’s a stray animal or a real threat.”
This sentiment is echoed by Essam Seoud, Head of Enterprise Sales, META at Kaspersky, who has worked closely with industrial operators across the Gulf.
“AI can flag threats faster than any human—but it’s the human mind that decides what truly matters,” he explains. In Kaspersky’s approach, AI acts as the sensor—not the judge. “Autonomous systems filter the noise. People make the decisions.”
When it comes to securing remote energy and industrial sites, Kaspersky emphasizes a return to fundamentals. “It starts with visibility and hygiene,” says Seoud. Many vulnerabilities in unmanned environments stem from basic oversights: unpatched OT systems, outdated device inventories, or poor network segmentation. Kaspersky advises organisations to begin with a comprehensive vulnerability assessment, then deploy robust platforms like Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity, which provides asset management, risk analysis, and compliance controls tailored to industrial settings.
But technology alone isn’t enough. “You need well-trained on-site teams, a live inventory of all IT and OT assets, and, critically, a cultural bridge between engineering and cybersecurity,” Seoud notes. In a threat landscape where even minor gaps are exploited, resilience is built not just on smart tools—but on disciplined execution and cross-functional collaboration.
And the need for well-trained human oversight is growing. “The attacker on the other side may also be using AI,” warns Dr. Emad Fahmy, Director of Sales Engineering at NETSCOUT in the Middle East. “We’ve seen AI-based attack generation targeting OT environments. So your defense can’t just be reactive—it needs to learn, adapt, and escalate the right way.”
The human-machine relationship, according to Fahmy, should be layered. “Autonomous systems detect and trigger first response. Humans verify and adapt. The magic is in the escalation protocol.” He describes one scenario in a Gulf petrochemical facility where a minor network anomaly, flagged by AI, turned out to be an insider’s unscheduled remote access. A human operator caught it—because the AI didn’t recognize the risk in context.
Yet, even the best security architecture falters without integration—and this is where the Middle East faces one of its greatest hurdles.
“Integration is where security becomes operational resilience,” says Firas Jadalla, Regional Director – Middle East, Turkey & Africa at Genetec. His teams have worked with port authorities and energy operators to implement unified platforms that link video, access control, and cyber threat monitoring. “In places like Jebel Ali Free Zone or Abu Dhabi’s industrial corridors, you can’t afford silos. Security systems must talk to each other.”
Jadalla notes a key shift in the region: Middle Eastern operators are moving away from proprietary platforms and towards open architectures with encrypted communications, centralized oversight, and API-driven interoperability. These systems not only support compliance with regional data laws—they scale more effectively across diverse, multi-site operations.
But even integration must be phased. “You can’t just switch on AI across your OT network and expect resilience,” says Whitehouse. “You pilot in low-risk areas, test for cyber and safety redundancies, and scale gradually.” And always with human-in-the-loop protocols, he stresses, especially when dealing with life-safety environments like gas pipelines, desalination plants, or airports.
Ilias Tsapsidis, Sales Director for ESET in the Middle East, Greece, Cyprus & Malta, warns that some of the most basic cybersecurity practices remain neglected across the region’s remote facilities. “Too many sites still operate on flat networks, lack endpoint protection, and have no audit trails,” he says. For ESET, true resilience begins with layered defenses—combining physical security like surveillance and access control with digital safeguards such as network segmentation, real-time monitoring, and rigorous, routine audits.
Tsapsidis underscores the importance of isolating failure points: “If automation fails, humans must step in. If one device is compromised, it shouldn’t bring down the rest.” He stresses that while AI and automation can detect threats at scale, only human oversight can provide the necessary context and judgment. “Machines flag the anomaly—but people make the decision.” By integrating hybrid systems that blend autonomous tools with active human governance, ESET believes organisations can maintain continuity, meet regulatory demands, and secure even the most remote corners of their infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Sven Oehme, CTO at DDN, points to a deeper layer—the data itself. “Securing remote and unmanned facilities is as much a data problem as it is a physical or cybersecurity one,” he says. These sites generate a flood of data from cameras, sensors, and drones. “The organisations that succeed are those who treat that data as mission-critical—collected efficiently, analyzed in real-time, and stored securely across distributed sites.”
Oehme believes the future of unmanned security lies in intelligent nervous systems, where a spike in network traffic, a missing access log, or an unusual heat signature from a drone are all correlated in one platform. “Security becomes an ecosystem. Not an add-on.”
And in a region that’s building for the future—from NEOM in Saudi Arabia to Masdar City in Abu Dhabi—security is not just protection. It is the foundation of progress.
As Lionel Thomas, Chairman of ATERMES, puts it: “AI handles detection. Humans review action. That’s the balance.” His firm, which works on AI-powered edge surveillance systems, is developing hybrid models that combine multispectral sensors with zero-trust cybersecurity and redundant communications. “The Middle East is ready for advanced security, but only if we align ethics, accountability, and innovation.”
Ultimately, the consensus is clear: in the Middle East, remote and unmanned facilities will only remain secure if automation is layered with vigilance, data flows with integrity, and humans stay engaged in the loop.
Because even in the most remote corners of the region, infrastructure doesn’t sleep—and neither should its guardians.
