The venue hosts over 100 major live events annually and serves as the home of the world’s first LaLiga Academy. It features six professional-grade football pitches (both indoor and outdoor), three world-class racket sports facilities, and four F&B outlets, including Kickers Sports Bar—one of Dubai's most popular sports bars. Its scale and visibility make strong cybersecurity essential to protect digital operations and fan experiences.

The deployment comes in the context of escalating cyber risk across the region. Over 223,800 assets hosted in the UAE are potentially exposed to cyberattacks, with half of the critical vulnerabilities remaining unpatched. Additionally, the number of ransomware attacks rose by 32% in 2024 alone. With its high-footfall infrastructure and constant digital interaction — from ticketing and analytics to streaming and bookings — ISD recognized the need for a future-ready cybersecurity framework.

To protect ISD’s web infrastructure, Nothreat deployed its AI-powered cybersecurity platform, designed to defend complex business environments in real time with over 99% detection accuracy. As part of the deployment, Nothreat integrated its U.S.-patented CyberEcho — an AI-driven deception technology that creates adaptive digital clones to lure and deceive adversaries, analyze behavior, and stop threats before they escalate. The platform is based on continuous incremental learning from data obtained from digital clones and from normal traffic, and does not require human annotations. It functions as a self-learning system that constantly adapts to new threats. CyberEcho’s methodology is grounded in Nothreat’s peer-reviewed research published via Springer.

The system assigns each incident a priority level from 1 to 5: while lower-tier threats typically include basic scans or credential stuffing attempts, priorities 3 through 5 represent highly aggressive or manual attacks, such as novel payloads including AI-generated threats, or direct human-driven intrusion attempts. During the first month of deployment at ISD Dubai Sports City, the platform was able to identify and categorize over 275,000 threats including 1,300 sophisticated attacks, with more than 70% originating from outside the UAE.

“ISD Dubai Sports City is a digitally sophisticated, high-impact environment — exactly the kind of infrastructure that modern adversaries seek to exploit,” said Sergej Kostenko, CEO of Nothreat. “The scale and complexity of AI-driven attacks make it clear that traditional security models are no longer sufficient. Organizations operating in today’s connected world require AI-powered defense systems capable of adapting in real time — and as outlined in our recent ThreatScape 2025 report, this shift is being driven by the rapid rise of both cross-border, country-specific targeting and the deployment of novel AI-generated threats.”

Daniels Petrovs, CEO of ISD Dubai Sports City, added: “With over 1.1 million visitors and a growing reliance on interconnected digital platforms, cybersecurity is no longer a back-office function for us — it’s foundational. Nothreat’s ability to quickly deploy an intelligent, AI-driven framework without interrupting operations gave us immediate value and long-term confidence.”

Nothreat and ISD Dubai Sports City are now preparing for the next phase of their collaboration, which includes expanded integration across digital and venue operations, the development of cybersecurity protocols for large-scale international events, and joint R&D initiatives focused on advancing AI-based protection frameworks tailored for the sports and entertainment sector.

About ISD Dubai Sports City
ISD Dubai Sports City is a unique sporting destination. For nearly five years, our top-tier facility has welcomed amateur and professional athletes from across Dubai, offering world-class venues, training programs, and fitness facilities for all ages and skill levels. Beyond sports, it’s a premier gathering place for fans to connect over live and streamed events, solidifying its role as the city’s dynamic hub for athletic and community excellence.
https://isddubai.com