In the UAE’s rapidly evolving digital healthcare landscape, cybersecurity is no longer a technical silo—it is foundational to public trust, operational continuity, and national resilience. At the Department of Health, this realization has driven a significant shift in how cybersecurity is approached and embedded across systems and services. “Cyber resilience, especially in healthcare, isn’t just about stopping attacks—it’s about maintaining care delivery no matter what,” says Amal Abbas Al Obeidli, Acting Section Head of Information Security Operations. “We view security as the foundation of patient trust.”
Recognizing the critical nature of healthcare operations, the Department has built a proactive cybersecurity strategy centered around resilience. This includes tightly integrated business continuity planning, advanced incident response capabilities, and a forward-looking threat hunting posture. These are not just technical measures—they are organizational principles.
The Department’s strategy is informed by leading international frameworks such as NIST CSF, MITRE ATT&CK, and CIS Benchmarks, and aligned with national standards including UAE IA, ADHICS, and NESA. Amal emphasizes that this alignment has helped ensure both operational rigor and regulatory trust. “Global best practices give us a strong foundation, but local context matters. Aligning with UAE specific standards ensures we’re not only compliant—we’re relevant,” she explains. As the healthcare sector rapidly digitizes, the attack surface has expanded significantly. One of the key challenges identified by the Department was maintaining consistent visibility and governance across hybrid and cloud environments. This challenge sparked a broader transformation—moving from static tools to adaptive, cloud-native security models.
“We quickly realized that visibility couldn’t be an afterthought in a hybrid setup. We had to rethink governance entirely,” Amal notes. The Department responded by investing in cloud security posture management (CSPM), automating compliance monitoring, and establishing unified policies across platforms. But more than the tools, the cultural shift proved just as critical. By training DevSecOps champions across teams, security was integrated early into the software development lifecycle—improving outcomes and reducing risk. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have played an increasingly strategic role. The Department uses AI to support anomaly detection, threat prediction, and automated incident triage, reducing dwell time and allowing teams to prioritize complex threats.
“AI has helped us scale our response without scaling our teams. It’s not about replacing people—it’s about enabling them to focus where it matters most,” says Amal. At the same time, the Department has moved away from viewing compliance as a one-time milestone. Instead, compliance is now treated as an ongoing process—continuously monitored, audited, and adjusted as standards evolve. “We don’t see compliance as a checkbox exercise. It’s embedded in how we operate every day,” Amal states.
This dynamic compliance posture has helped ensure the Department remains both agile and audit-ready, even as digital services expand. Crucially, cybersecurity is tightly interwoven with the Department’s broader digital transformation agenda. As patient expectations grow and services become more digitized, trust in the security of healthcare systems has become a strategic differentiator. “In healthcare, people aren’t just users—they’re patients. Their data is deeply personal. That makes security not just a technical issue, but a human one,” Amal adds. By embedding cybersecurity into every digital initiative—from mobile apps to AI-powered diagnostics—the Department ensures that innovation does not come at the cost of safety or privacy.
Looking to the future, Amal sees rising complexity in threats, regulations, and technology. Yet this is also where opportunity lies. “We’re preparing for a world where AI-driven attacks, data sovereignty, and regulatory intensity will all converge. To stay ahead, we’re investing in adaptive security, ethical AI governance, and continuous resilience testing,” she says. As the healthcare sector continues to transform, the Department of Health’s cybersecurity leadership offers a model for how resilience, trust, and innovation can move forward—together.
