#UAE #cybersecurity - The UAE Cyber Security Council (CSC), Microsoft and Core42 have announced plans to deploy MDASH, Microsoft’s AI-powered cybersecurity capability, across UAE government entities. MDASH uses AI models and automated analysis to identify vulnerabilities, prioritise risks and improve security posture at scale. Under the plan, the Cyber Security Council will oversee responsible AI adoption through the UAE’s National AI Test and Validation Lab, while Core42 provides onboarding and implementation support through its Sovereign Public Cloud offering. The rollout begins with awareness sessions, pilots and technical workshops for participating government entities.
SO WHAT? - Government systems are an increasingly attractive target as AI gets embedded across public services, and securing the code behind those systems matters more the faster that embedding happens. Routing this through Core42’s sovereign cloud, rather than a standard Microsoft deployment, keeps government data and security controls under local oversight while still drawing on Microsoft’s AI capability. That structure, global AI tools paired with sovereign infrastructure, is becoming the UAE’s default model for adopting foreign technology in sensitive sectors, and this is a direct application of it to cybersecurity itself.
SO WHAT? - This deal follows multiple statements made throughout this year by the UAE Cyber Security Council, reporting various attacks on government and critical infrastructure this year. For example, in February the council accused terrorist-linked groups of using AI to build more sophisticated offensive tools against national platforms. Just last month the council said that it had repelled attacks targeting aviation, energy and education sectors in the UAE. Deploying an AI system capable of finding critical vulnerabilities before attackers do is a critical part of the solution to defend against such attacks.
KEY POINTS:
Microsoft, the UAE Cyber Security Council and Core42 have announced plans to deploy MDASH, Microsoft’s AI-powered cybersecurity capability, across UAE government entities.
MDASH is a Microsoft Security multi-model agentic scanning harness, introduced by the software company in May 2026. The agentic security system uses AI models and automated analysis to identify vulnerabilities, prioritise risks and improve security posture at speed and scale.
The UAE Cyber Security Council will support government adoption and responsible use of AI for cybersecurity through the UAE’s National AI Test and Validation Lab.
Core42 will provide onboarding, implementation and capacity-building support through its Sovereign Public Cloud offering, developed in partnership with Microsoft, with a focus on security, privacy and operational resilience.
H.E. Dr Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cyber Security for the UAE Government, said securing the code underpinning government and critical services must be built in from the outset as AI becomes integral to these systems.
Hayete Gallot, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President for Security and Emerging Technologies, said governments increasingly see AI as a force multiplier for protecting national assets and people.
Talal M. Al Kaissi, CEO of Core42, said the collaboration combines AI security capabilities with sovereign infrastructure and local expertise, keeping security, privacy and operational control central to the deployment.
The rollout will follow a phased approach, beginning with awareness sessions, pilot programmes, technical workshops and onboarding for participating government entities.
ZOOM OUT - Built by Microsoft's Autonomous Code Security team, MDASH orchestrates more than 100 specialised AI agents across a mix of frontier and smaller models that discover candidate bugs, debate whether they're real, then construct working proof-of-concept exploits to confirm them before anything reaches a human. On a test driver seeded with 21 known vulnerabilities, MDASH found all 21 with no false positives, and it topped the public CyberGym benchmark of 1,507 real-world vulnerabilities at 88.45%, roughly five points clear of the next-best system. Microsoft says the advantage comes from the agentic pipeline around the model, not any single model itself, meaning the system keeps improving as new models are swapped in.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]
Source: Core42, Microsoft, Cyber Security Council
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