Growing cyber threats increase need for specialised skills: Hina Saif

ISLAMABAD, Oct 03 (APP):The growing complexity of cyber threats is increasing the need for professionals with specialised skills in network security, data protection, identity management and digital risk, UK-based Pakistani cybersecurity professional Hina Saif said.

Talking to media, she said cybersecurity had become an increasingly important part of the digital environment as businesses, governments and individuals relied more heavily on interconnected systems and digital services.

She said organisations required professionals capable of identifying security threats, responding to incidents and developing measures to protect critical systems and information.

Hina Saif said Pakistan was also working to strengthen its cybersecurity capabilities and develop specialised human resources to meet the requirements of the rapidly evolving digital sector.

Sharing her professional journey from Lahore to Glasgow, she said education, practical experience and continuous skills development had contributed to her work in enterprise networking and cybersecurity.

She studied information technology in Lahore before completing a master’s degree in Advanced Security and Digital Forensics at Edinburgh Napier University in the United Kingdom.

Before completing her master’s degree, she worked as a network administrator, where she was involved in maintaining systems supporting business operations and addressing connectivity and access-related issues.

She later moved into enterprise network engineering in Glasgow, where she worked in operational networking environments.

At Systal Technology Solutions, she said, she was involved in a multi-site transition from legacy network links to Cisco SD-WAN technology. According to her, the project reduced wide-area connection costs by 30 per cent and improved network performance by 25 per cent while being implemented with minimal disruption to operations.

She said her responsibilities also included firewall management, critical network incident response and the development of Network Operations Centre routines to support system monitoring and incident response.

She also said she had trained engineers and worked on technical documentation to help teams identify network problems and improve incident-response processes.

“Security tools should provide actionable visibility, not only generate alerts,” she said, stressing the importance of converting security information into practical insights for timely action.

Discussing identity security, Hina said large organisations often had account and access information distributed across multiple systems, which could make it difficult to identify inactive accounts, inconsistent records and privileged access.

She said she independently developed Hyperion Identity Intelligence, a software platform designed to consolidate identity information and provide organisations with a unified view of accounts, access permissions, inactive identities and privileged access for security, governance and operational review.

She also said she had developed a Python-based intrusion-detection tool designed to monitor network activity for repeated connection attempts and other indicators of potentially suspicious behaviour, with security information presented through a real-time dashboard.

According to Hina, the tool is publicly available and has also been implemented and evaluated by external technical professionals.

She also holds the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification.

Hina said her professional work covered enterprise networking, cybersecurity operations, identity security and independent security-tool development.

She has also contributed to public knowledge-sharing, including through a published article on privacy, security and governance.

She said the cybersecurity sector would require continuous learning as technologies and cyber threats continued to evolve.

Hina said she remained focused on work related to cybersecurity, identity security and secure digital infrastructure, while contributing to awareness and knowledge-sharing in the field.