Saudi Arabia’s accelerating investment in sport is creating a cyber security challenge as clubs and sporting organisations adopt connected technologies, digital fan engagement platforms and services powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
Under the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 programme, sport has become an increasingly important part of its economic diversification and digital transformation ambitions. However, the expansion of digital services is also exposing organisations to a broader range of cyber threats, including compromised accounts, data exposure and attacks targeting connected venue infrastructure.
According to Sultan Alanazi, country regional director for Saudi Arabia at LogRhythm | Exabeam, the growing complexity of sports organisations’ technology environments is making it harder for security teams to distinguish legitimate activity from potentially malicious behaviour.
“Areas including ticketing, fan services and venue systems are now more connected, increasing the risk of personal data exposure, cyber attacks targeting supporters, and disruption to the services clubs use to serve them,” he said.
One emerging challenge is the potential misuse of legitimate access credentials. A compromised account may already have authorised access to ticketing platforms, customer databases or other operational systems, making suspicious activity more difficult to identify through conventional security monitoring.
Introducing AI agents into business operations adds another dimension to this risk. As sports organisations experiment with autonomous systems to support performance analysis and administrative processes, agents may be granted access to sensitive information and enterprise tools.
“Areas including ticketing, fan services and venue systems are now more connected, increasing the risk of personal data exposure, cyber attacks targeting supporters, and disruption to the services clubs use to serve them”
Sultan Alanazi, LogRhythm | Exabeam
However, Alanazi warned that authorised access does not necessarily mean an agent will always behave as intended.
An AI agent could exceed its assigned remit, retrieve information beyond its intended purpose or be manipulated by an attacker. This creates a new category of insider risk, in which potentially harmful activity originates from an authorised digital entity rather than an external threat actor.
“AI agents add to the region’s risk environment as clubs explore their uses within the sports sector without proper governance and threat detection,” he said. “These agents introduce another form of insider risk.”
Connected stadiums expand the attack surface
The risks extend beyond the digital platforms used to engage supporters. Sports organisations are increasingly dependent on interconnected environments spanning ticketing, payments, player performance systems, cloud applications and physical venue infrastructure.
Internet of things (IoT) devices, including turnstiles, surveillance cameras and building management systems, can introduce additional entry points into corporate networks, particularly when different teams or external providers are responsible for managing them.
Alanazi said the growing number of connections between sensitive data, users, applications and third-party providers makes it increasingly difficult for security teams to establish whether access is appropriate.
Player health and performance records, for example, may be shared across multiple departments and applications. As the number of access points increases, organisations need greater visibility into who is accessing information, why it is being accessed and whether that activity falls within expected parameters.
Similarly, a compromised account used to manage connected venue technology could potentially provide an attacker with a route into other connected systems.
Regional geopolitical tensions add further pressure to an environment in which sporting organisations need to maintain operational continuity and protect sensitive information.
Strengthening threat monitoring, detection and response
These challenges are informing a memorandum of understanding between LogRhythm | Exabeam and Saudi football club Al Qadsiah, which aims to explore opportunities to strengthen the club’s threat monitoring, detection and incident response capabilities.
The collaboration will examine three areas that Alanazi identifies as common weaknesses in organisations beginning to develop their cyber security operations: fragmented visibility, limited contextual information and unclear responsibilities.
Fragmented visibility occurs when activity across business networks, cloud environments and venue technology is monitored through separate systems. Without the ability to correlate events across these environments, security analysts may struggle to establish the full scope of an incident.
Limited context presents another problem. An alert may indicate that an account has accessed a particular system, but provide little information about who or what initiated the activity, whether it was expected or what happened afterwards.
This becomes particularly significant as organisations introduce AI agents that can carry out tasks alongside human employees.
The third challenge is governance. Organisations need clearly defined responsibilities for investigating alerts, involving external service providers and authorising action when a digital service is at risk. For Alanazi, the ability to establish these responsibilities is essential to moving beyond threat detection towards a coordinated security response.
Insider threats and AI governance move up the agenda
The growing cyber security requirements of the sports sector come as Saudi organisations increasingly adopt AI across their operations.
Research from LogRhythm | Exabeam, titled From adoption to accountability, found that 75% of Saudi respondents claimed AI was already improving the speed and accuracy of their security operations. However, another report from the company, From human to hybrid: How AI and the analytics gap are fueling insider risk, found that 70% of cyber security professionals in the Middle East viewed malicious or compromised insiders as a greater threat than external attackers.
Alanazi said these findings highlight the need for organisations to develop stronger behavioural monitoring capabilities as their technology environments become more complex.
While cyber security investment in Saudi Arabia has traditionally concentrated on critical infrastructure sectors such as banking, energy and government, he argued that sporting organisations should not be overlooked.
A cyber incident involving a high-profile club could expose supporters’ personal information, disrupt commercial operations and undermine public trust. As clubs introduce more digital services and connect additional users and systems, their exposure to insider threats also increases.
AI-powered security operations need human oversight
AI is also becoming an increasingly prominent component of the security technologies being deployed to address these challenges. However, Alanazi said its value should be measured by its ability to improve investigation and response processes rather than by the technology itself.
AI can help security analysts prioritise alerts, collect relevant evidence and summarise investigations, allowing teams to concentrate on incidents that pose the greatest risk.
The company’s Nova AI capabilities are intended to support analysts in investigating incidents and determining which activity requires attention. Its partnership with Google Cloud also provides organisations with a way to apply behavioural analytics to data held within Google Security Operations.
However, Alanazi cautioned against treating AI deployment as an end in itself: “Clubs should assess the value of AI based on outcomes that include faster investigations and more consistent responses,” he said.
He added that reliable data, clear governance and human oversight remain essential, with analysts ultimately responsible for assessing findings and making decisions.
Ensuring security decisions are a fundamental part of each project’s design, approval and review process gives clubs a responsible way to grow their AI capabilities under Saudi Vision 2030 Sultan Alanazi, LogRhythm | Exabeam
The company is also planning a customer innovation centre in Riyadh, as part of an expanded regional headquarters expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2026. The facility is intended to help organisations explore how AI technologies can be deployed securely in operational environments.
Security by design for Saudi sport
As Saudi Arabia continues to invest in sporting infrastructure and digital services under Vision 2030, Alanazi said cyber security needs to be incorporated into technology projects from the outset rather than treated as an additional requirement after deployment.
This includes involving security teams in business decisions, assessing the security implications of new services and establishing clear ownership before systems go live.
AI agents require particular attention, with organisations needing to define the tasks they can perform, the information and tools they can access, and which actions require human approval.
Also, as connected venues, digital fan platforms and AI-driven services become more central to the Kingdom’s sporting ambitions, the ability to monitor activity across these environments will be an increasingly important part of operational resilience.
“Ensuring security decisions are a fundamental part of each project’s design, approval and review process gives clubs a responsible way to grow their AI capabilities under Saudi Vision 2030,” said Alanazi.
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